Hyouriittai
by Marie9
Summary: A series of various one-shots and multi-parters detailing the ongoing adventures of the meitantei Kudo and the thief Kid after they've begun to work together, having discovered that they're two sides of the same coin. File 10: Bodies from Heaven
1. Realizations Made

This is going to be a bit different for me doing a 1-shot collection like this but I liked the idea of 1-shots instead of a long story for this particular concept and hope you'll enjoy! :) I'd recommend reading 'Muzai' to understand the background for this first story (a 'cut scene' from Chapter 15 that picks up from where 15 actually ends) but the rest beyond it will all stand on their own.

* * *

"Men dressed from head to toe in black?"

Shinichi was somewhat surprised by the master thief's strange question and weird reaction to Shinichi's full description of the pair of jacketed, hatted men that had changed (nearly) his entire life for the worse; as Shinichi had begun to detail what exactly happened to him that rendered his seventeen-year-old body transformed into that of a seven-year-old child the other boy blanched momentarily just enough for the shrunken meitantei to notice it before Kaito sank down into the love seat across the room and studied him with a frown accompanied by a very serious expression, in fact the most serious expression Shinichi had _ever _seen the other boy wear whether or not Kaitou Kid's monocle had been perched on Kaito's face at the time.

"Yeah," Shinichi replied after he realized that Kaito's question was finished. "Of course I didn't know it during the time that they whacked me over the head and tried to kill me, but they were -are- members of a highly dangerous criminal cartel known as the Black Organization, called that because all their members seem to dress in nothing but black when they're not disguised. Anyhow, after they nearly knocked me out they made me swallow a pill full of something I later found out is called APTX 4869- an experimental poison that's supposed to be foolproof and untraceable. I passed out being absolutely sure that I was going to die, and then when I woke up I looked like this- or I at least found out that I looked like this pretty quickly." Shinichi gestured loosely at his tiny frame. "Some cops found me when they were sweeping stragglers out of Tropical Land hours later. I got very lucky and was able to get out of the station they took me to; after that I found an old family friend, Agasa-hakase, and I managed to convince him that it was me. I've been living with Mouri Kogoro and Mouri Ran ever since under the alias of Edogawa Conan."

"Kudo, ya really sure you should be telling him quite this much?" inquired Heiji tersely after Shinichi had finished, the Osakan meitantei shifting about on the other end of the three-seat couch that Shinichi was also sitting on, very tense looking and definitely not quite comfortable at how much of the cat Shinichi was daring to let out of the bag to _Kuroba Kaito_ of all people, even if they were currently allies. "I mean yeah, we may be working with him temporarily and everything until we figure out these statues and what's going on with them but this guy is _still_-"

"People dressed exactly like you're describing also killed my father," replied Kaito in a pained, quiet voice as he interrupted Heiji in midsentence, earning stares of open shock from both meitantei in the room. "I don't know if either of you has ever heard of him, you might if you can remember back seven or eight years or if you'd ever seen one of his shows, but he was a very famous magician who died in a 'tragic stage accident' during one of his finales about nine years ago that I found out eventually was _no _accident. It was a coldly premeditated slaying." He let out a deep breath. "Kuroba Toichi was his name."

_Whoa...could the people that killed his father have been the Black Organization as well? It sure sounds like it. But why would they have killed him? _Shinichi was still trying to figure out all of the possible implications, especially because his mom had learned some general tricks but most particularly the art of stage makeup from Kuroba Toichi. _The last name...Why didn't I think of that sooner? _Shinichi also had a few very vague but fond memories associated with the magician from back when he had _really_ been a kid, and he was just trying to fully recall them when Kaito spoke up again.

"They killed my father and made it look like an accident," the magician said darkly, "because of something he wouldn't do for them."

"What's that?" both tantei inquired at the same moment, the question irresistible thanks to how tantalizing and packed with mystery that phrase was; it was like putting a nice, fat piece of raw steak in front of a very hungry dog.

"Follow me," replied Kaito after a few reflective moments to mull things over as he pointed his finger at Shinichi. "Not you, just Kudo," Kaito added shortly and firmly to Heiji as both boys got up off the couch. "Sorry Hattori, but I would like to exercise at least _some _control over _what_ further information gets out to _whom_ regarding me or my family and since _he's_ the one that got shrunk by the same group of bastards that killed Dad, he wins."

"If anything happens to Kudo-" began Heiji threateningly as he finished standing up, but Kaito cut him off with a glare.

"Oh come _on _Hattori! What am I going to do, kidnap him and hold him for ransom so that you won't reveal my identity or something?" Kaito rolled his eyes in annoyance before crossing his arms and standing in a slightly defensive stance, obviously angry with the Osakan for thinking such a thing. "I take my number one rule _very_ seriously, and I don't appreciate what you just insinuated. Besides, have you forgotten about that fact that I have a lot more at stake in the investigation we're working on than either of you? _I'm_ the one getting framed for murder. Why would I want to-"

"It's alright, Hattori." Shinichi physically stepped in between the pair while making the comment to Heiji and then looked up at both other boys in turn. "Now calm down, both of you." Shinichi was desperately trying to defuse the very tense situation before a brawl broke out; he knew that angry glint in Heiji's viridian eyes all too well, the one that was generally followed by a criminal getting whacked over the head with either a kendo bokken or something that could closely enough substitute for the purpose of said whacking. "Just show me what you want to show me," Shinichi added to Kaito as he felt a sweat drop began tricking down the side of his head. _The last thing we need right now is for a fight to break out between you two..._

Kaito nodded, and Shinichi and Kaito then exited Jii's living room while Heiji thunked back down onto the couch in a sulky huff, as angry at being denied information, the lifeblood of a tantei, as he was at the fact that Shinichi hadn't either a) insisted he be allowed to come along or b) ask that Heiji at _least_ be allowed to know whatever it was that Kaito was going to say once they left.

"Back this way," the thief said while he waved his hand towards a tiny back room off of the hallway of the older man's house. "I'll show you a picture of Dad to start things off." With that, they finished entering a room that had a rather large picture of a magician in a full white, crisp outfit hanging centered on its wall. "This is Dad- Kuroba Toichi," said Kaito while his voice swelled with pride before he stepped forward and carefully tapped three different spots on the frame surrounding the picture, then gently poked each of the three doves in the picture. That was when the picture suddenly made a loud grinding noise before it completely spun on its axis, revealing a vastly different picture- one of a very familiar appearing white-clad thief, but whose face looked much older.

"That," explained Kaito simply as he began thunking the picture's frame in three spots that varied from the first set of taps and pressing the cards instead of the doves this time, "is _also_ Dad." He figured that the meitantei standing next to him was more than intelligent enough to put two and two together after that statement and seeing Toichi as Kid in the painting, so he didn't elaborate any further and waited for whatever questions Shinichi would ask after the other boy finished assembling the mental puzzle pieces. Kaito wasn't too shocked when the question came mere moments after his second statement.

"They killed him because he wouldn't steal something for them, right?"

Kaito nodded as this time, the picture actually began sliding over to the left, revealing a medium-sized hole in the wall where the painting used to be. "That's exactly it. C'mon back here, it's way smaller than the room I normally get to work in at home but it does the job in a pinch. Hurry, the door will only stay open for a few more seconds." Kaito entered the hole and then helped Shinichi up into it. "Sorry, the whole point of this being designed this way was to keep out curious kids in case by some amazing chance they ever managed to hit that thing in the right places," he snickered, earning a death glare from the tiny meitantei after Kaito had set him back down on the other side while the painting slid back into place.

"So what exactly was it that they wanted him to steal?" asked Shinichi after he spent a few minutes just wandering around the back room while Kaito busied himself with checking on the condition of a few of his toys, Shinichi taking in all of the tricks and gadgets packed into nearly every square inch of the room and amazed that Kaito had managed to cram so much into the room.

"Pandora."

"What is that exactly?" Shinichi finally asked after the thief didn't seem to be forthcoming with anything else.

"Think about it, tantei-kun; I know you're smarter than that." Kaito turned from his current delicate work of oiling his glider's interlocking pieces and offered a grin. "What do I steal? And then return, eventually?"

"Jewels and gems." Shinichi frowned as he thought about it for a few more moments. "But if it's money gotten through selling them that they're after, surely there are far more-"

"They're not after Pandora because of _money_. Of course, neither am I but that's beside the point." Kaito shook his head as put his glider off to the side and then began to work on repairing one of his countless Kaitou Kid-lookalike blowup dolls that had had a rather rough landing after he'd used it to lead the police off on a wild goose chase away from his getaway vehicle, the thief pulling out bond adhesive and a roll of white and tan heavy-duty patching material meant for inflatable rafts and things of that nature. "It's supposed to be able to grant immortality."

"Immortality? But how?" Shinichi's brows were knitted in confusion.

"It's said that if you take Pandora outdoors under the moon while the Volley's Comet passes overhead, which happens once every 10,000 years, it will shed 'tears' that if consumed make you unable to die," Kaito explained as he began cutting the pieces he would need to repair the lookalike doll. "Unfortunately I have no idea what Pandora looks like, but if you hold it up under moonlight a smaller red gem is supposed to appear within it- a jewel within a jewel. Which is why I go after only larger jewels and gems, ones that have the possibility of containing another jewel in them. And then once I've stolen the gem, I usually try and wait for the full moon and hold it up to the moonlight to see if another gem is inside of it. Finally, I return the gem once I've verified that it's not Pandora." He made a face. "Which is sometimes more of a pain than the initial theft, really. People tend to amp up thier security after they've been stolen from."

"But that Pandora story sounds like some kind of child's fairy tale," Shinichi muttered, still slightly dazed and confused. The whole thing sounded so illogical! "It sure sounds like the Black Organization is taking it seriously enough, though..." He looked over at the other boy sadly for a moment, realizing that that may have brought up unpleasant memories of his father's death. In the next instant, his eyes became intense. "At least I finally understand two things that were bugging me ever since I started tailing you. Well, three actually."

"Hmm?" This noise was uttered through a mouthful of patch material, Kaito not even lifting his eyes from his current task.

"Why you always return what you steal, and why the time that you return the items varies so wildly from theft to theft. I'd never seen a thief that didn't seem to want to gain anything from thier thefts before." As Shinichi picked up a stray playing card off the ground he added "And why you steal to begin with" right before the card bent slightly and vaporized into a puff of smoke in his hand, the activated miniature smoke bomb hidden within the card having been triggered and quickly filling the small hidden workplace with billowing white smoke that totally covered Shinichi.

"Nice going, you set off one of my smokescreen cards" coughed Kaito through watering eyes as he stumbled over to the back of the painting that led into the room and pulled a small lever, which reopened the entrance as the thick smoke came pouring out through the open hole. Both boys exited the room, still coughing madly.

"What the hell'd you do, experiment with new explosives you were gonna use at a heist or something?" demanded Heiji as he entered the room and surveyed the smoke-filled room and coughing pair. "All of a sudden I see this thick white smoke come driftin' into the living room..."

"Kudo set off one of my smokescreen cards on accident," Kaito managed to get out through a final, less severe bout of coughing before glancing down at Shinichi with a half-meant glare. "First rule," he began in a lighthearted tone. "Don't _ever_ just pick things up that are laying around one of my workrooms like that. Hell, _I _still don't know what all is hidden in some of those places and what some of the stuff does." Then the magician-thief looked down again for a bit at Shinichi's vaguely stunned, somewhat white-dyed, horror-filled expression and emitted a loud, bracing round of laughter that caused the other two to laugh riotously as well, in spite of themselves.

* * *

"So, Kudo and I were talking," began Heiji to Kaito ten minutes later after Shinichi had finished his attempt to clean the white residue off of him as best he could. "We think that we need to get that idiot Hakuba back on track, and a good way to do that would be to plan a fake heist."

"A fake heist? How exactly do you mean?" inquired the other boy, who was still in the room that contained his father's picture trying to clean the last of the residue from the smokescreen up, scrubbing the carpet as best he could with his hands and knees.

"I mean do what ya normally do, send a note and everything, but don't show up." Heiji followed this by leaning against the wooden doorframe casually and taking a sip of the orange soda he'd just pilfered from Jii's fridge.

Kaito looked up from his work and gave the Osakan a questioning glance. "And what good would that possibly do? Except serve the purpose of distracting Hakuba even _further_ from trying to figure out the stupid statues?" With an irritated huff, he returned to his chore.

"Well, once he shows up, see, he finds that you've left another note there and then-"

"Besides," Kaito broke in with a gleeful grin, "there's an _actual _heist that we should probably be placing our energies into planning. Right, Kudo?" He glanced over at Shinichi, who was also trying to help clean up the mess.

"Well, I don't know about a _heist_," Shinichi said warily with a guarded glance to Kaito, "but there was just a special on TV about another one of the statues- it's in a secure facility across town. It might be a good idea to see if we can get out hands on it and investigate it."

"Oh, dear, not another smoke bomb accident, Kaito." Jii's sad tone emitted from the doorway, where he currently stood behind Heiji. "How many times have I said-"

"Hey, Conan here was a newbie and I didn't warn him about the stuff layin' around here, you old jokester. My fault," replied Kaito with a wide grin that he directed towards Shinichi, then Jii.

"I'm sorry, Konsuke-ojisan," said Shinichi in as sweet and innocent as voice as he could muster. _So he must not have ever told Jii who I really am, and he obviously doesn't want Jii to know that he let me in the back room. _There was actually an almost palpable sense of relief; Shinichi didn't like too many people knowing who he really was because he felt that anyone who knew he was really the Heisei Holmes was placed in immediate danger thanks to the Black Organization. But Heiji...Heiji could defend himself without question. And Kaito...Well, he was _Kaitou Kid_, the slipperiest, most cunning thief alive. And as nervous as it had made Shinichi initially after finding that the other boy knew who he really was, the realization that he _finally _had someone else that he could drop his child's mask around besides his friend nearly three hours away in Osaka had actually brought Shinichi vast and equal measures of comfort and relief.

Shinichi also realized that Kaito had probably discussed things with him in that back room that were very painful for him, things that he rarely talked about at all while keeping that prankster, jokester face of a façade up almost all the time for the benefit of everyone around him, hiding his private pain in the meantime. _And who else do I know that has to almost constantly wear a mask and lie all the time to nearly everyone he's close to? Gee, let me think about that one..._Plus there was also the fact that both of them had had their lives so completely devastated by the Black Organization, though Shinichi felt that Kaito's losing a father to them certainly defaulted the greater amount of pain, suffering and agony to the thief. _Yeah I have to go back to elementary school and live like a kid again, which is a royal pain at times, but I at least still have both my parents..._

"So, what was this about a statue at another place nearby?" asked Jii as he rubbed his hands together gleefully. "I smell some fun brewing. Am I right, Kaito?"

"My new friend and I were just discussing that with Hattori here," replied Kaito as he pointed to Shinichi, who suddenly wore a surprised, contemplative look, before getting up off the floor. "Hattori must've been taking a nap or something when the special ran-" here he paused to elegantly, expertly duck out of the path of the now-empty soda can that Heiji viciously chucked at him like a fastball over Jii's right shoulder- "but there's another one of these weird Buddha statues at a storage place across town."

_A tantei and a thief, friends?_ Shinichi supposed that stranger, weirder things had happened in the world. He got up himself and offered Kaito a brief, genuine smile that was returned by the magician with equal sincerity and abruptness. Both then turned to Heiji, who had begun to talk.

"Well, Mr. Master Thief, let's get planning this thing already if we're gonna do it" muttered Heiji as he leveled a glare at Kaito.


	2. Ginza Murder Mystery, Part 1

Here goes! Gah, a multiple-shot already XD But the idea wouldn't leave my head!

* * *

"_My_ help? With a murder case you're working on?" Kaito tossed his well-worn, overstuffed book bag onto the floor of his bedroom with his free hand after his friend had finished explaining that he needed some assistance at a murder scene, and rather hastily if at all possible. A soft thud emitted from the tan carpet where the bag hit, followed by the slightly larger thud of Kaito plunking down onto his bed and laying on his back, holding the phone to his ear with a thoughtful expression afterward. _Well, the only thing I really had on the agenda for this afternoon was some biology homework, which I'm more than happy to get out of..._

"Yeah," replied Shinichi quickly and somewhat snappishly, his current bad mood due to the corner he'd suddenly found himself pressed into. Shinichi really _really _didn't want to bring another false tantei into the strange brew that he'd already so carefully created, but his back was against the wall at the moment and the police were of little to no help since neither Satou-keiji or Takagi-keiji was there to grease the wheels. Both of them were so used to following his hints by now- and him so familiar with the best methods of providing those same hints to the pair- that it would have made the current case much easier to work on. He would have even settled for Megure-keibu, but there was no such luck since this was out of that particular homicide unit's jurisdiction. Shinichi decided that explaining what was happening to Kaito as briefly as possible was the best course of action- maybe he could raise Kaito's interest to the point where he'd be willing to assist.

"I can't use Sonoko because she and Ran are off at the mall and Ran's not picking up her phone, Mouri-ojisan's off at some stupid pachinko parlor somewhere similarly refusing to answer his damn phone and Hattori's too far away to be able to get here in time. Agasa-hakase, the guy I would usually use as an emergency backup in this situation, has laryngitis at the moment so it would look just a _little _weird if he suddenly started talking." This hushed commentary was followed by a cough from the meitantei and some very muted background noise of chatter and shuffling. "The miming attempt he and I tried a few minutes ago didn't go so well." This was followed by two more light coughs and a muttered "Damn dust."

"Wait a minute," Kaito interjected after Shinichi's rather breathless explanation finished sinking in. _What is he talking about? Miming attempt? Emergency backup? _"What do you mean by _use_? That sounds pretty weird when you put it that way, Kudo-"

"It's the method that I've had to use to solve cases since I wound up getting shrunk." Shinichi sighed. "I found out really quickly that the police don't listen to a little kid most of the time or, this being the more common occurrence, they take my hints the wrong way and get ready to arrest the incorrect person. The meitanteis 'Sleeping Kogoro' and 'Sonoko the Deduction Queen' are both so competent because I'm solving the cases using their voices after I've knocked them out with a sleeping dart from my watch. Just get here alright? Please. I'll explain in full detail once you arrive." He rattled off an address that Kaito recognized as being in the very upscale Ginza district of Tokyo. "These cops aren't the ones I normally work with, so it's difficult to-" This was followed by the sound of a door opening and a woman's shriek, then some muffled apologies and a few moments of what sounded like running feet. "Sorry, maid walked into the linen closet I was hiding in to call you. Gotta find a different spot."

"Give me forty-five minutes to get there, do you think you can manage to buy that much time?" Kaito hoped so; he had an idea that would help Shinichi (he hoped) but it depended on at least _some _time to prepare before he left.

"I'll try to," came the quiet response from his friend as Shinichi frantically looked for a private spot to finish their conversation. _The victim just had to die in the middle of a freaking masquerade ball that he was throwing...Fifty guests, twenty cops still busy rounding them up and interrogating them and all this in a large three-story house that I can't seem to find a single empty room in. _"Luckily they're still interviewing and taking statements because there were so many people here. But why do you need that long?" Shinichi let out a soft, irritated growl as the response of a dial tone in his ear indicated that the master thief had terminated the call without answering the question. _That long is like an eternity where a case like this is concerned...His house isn't that far from here, is it?_

_Did you manage to get a hold of whoever you were trying to call? _

Shinichi was a bit thrown off when a torn piece of paper with that written on it was placed directly in front of his face while he was walking. He stopped rather clumsily before turning around and giving the placer an irritated glare that his young face and false glasses didn't do much to reduce the intensity of. "A little warning next time, eh Agasa-hakase? Even a tap on the shoulder would have been nice."

The white-haired scientist made a sheepish face and waved his hands back and forth in front of him in a 'sorry' motion.

"Yes, I talked to him and he agreed to come," Shinichi began grudgingly as Agasa's face brightened. The meitantei was somewhat wary; he really wasn't quite sure yet how much he wanted the older man to know about Kuroba Kaito- and more specifically and to the point, his friend's unusual, rather illegal nighttime occupation. "The problem is that we have to figure out how to waste about forty more minutes until he can get here." Agasa frowned and began scratching something else out on the piece of paper.

_Who did you call? Mouri Kogoro? That friend Hattori of yours from Osaka maybe?  
_

Shinichi just looked up at him blankly before a sarcastic expression crossed his face and filled his voice as he replied. "Ha, ha. You're funny. No, it wasn't Kogoro-ojisan. That guy's buried himself in a pachinko parlor somewhere, he won't even pick up his phone. I already told you I couldn't get a hold of him. And Hattori won't be able to get here on time."

_I'm going to run out of paper- just tell me who it was!_

This was, of course, one of the root problems that lay behind Shinichi's hasty, frantic phone call to Kaito.

Since he couldn't talk, Agasa needed to communicate through notes written using whatever paper he could find laying around, and the victim had had a rather severe phobia of _paper_ of all the bizarre things to have. Shinichi had thought it ridiculous when he looked around and saw not a single scrap of paper or product made from paper anywhere in the entire house after that fact had been related, but the head maid had explained that her master was absolutely, deathly afraid of paper and refused to permit any of it into his home. Everything was done through a computer or via telephone so as to create a totally paperless environment. The notepads Agasa had very thoughtfully brought with him had become quickly filled with fruitless attempts at assisting the police.

Now the phobia, of course, meant that the rather emotionless suicide note he'd left behind was utter crap and the guy had been murdered...by one of the _forty-five_ people that he'd invited to the masquerade thing he'd suddenly decided to put on a week before his death- or one of the five house staff trying to throw the police off the scent. Someone who was very unfamiliar with him and his phobia had killed him by placing a rather liberal quantity of arsenic in the brandy he enjoyed drinking so much. _Or could the victim have been very carefully faking the phobia for some reason or reasons unknown?_

Shinichi always _had_ hated the very beginnings of his cases, the mad internal scramble within him to try and get his bearings regarding the facts at hand and his first impressions of the victim and possible killers. Of course, the sheer size of this particular suspect pool was one hell of a headache just waiting to happen, and the rather bizarre facts at hand weren't helping much either. The meitantei's mood did not improve when he realized that he did indeed feel the first warning twinges of a headache announcing itself at the edges of his his temples.

"Oh, Conan," came Agasa's voice in a scratchy, weak singsong after he'd entered the hallway they'd gone into the room from, "a friend is here to see you." Shinichi wondered how his laryngitis had gotten so suddenly cured, then remembered that it had been a good two or three days; perhaps it was beginning to clear up.

Shinichi blinked, very confused. _No way that it's been forty minutes already...What the hell? _He checked his watch quickly and confirmed that only approximately twenty minutes had passed since he'd called Kaito. His puzzlement was only heightened when the perfectly put together Hakuba Saguru entered the room with Agasa-hakase a few moments later. _No way...Did Kaito call him or something and tell him to come? _Shinichi's eyes instantly narrowed as his head shook slightly, the thought dismissed by him almost as quickly as it was formed. _No, that can't possibly be right. Not only does Hakuba chase Kaitou Kid but Kaito said that he would be the one coming- _Shinichi felt his face freeze up for a moment as he realized his sheer level of stupidity. _Actually, this was a really great idea on his part. Hakuba's already got a well-established reputation, now we just have to hope that the police here have heard of him.  
_

"What's that look for, Conan? You're the one who called and asked me for my help a little while ago." 'Hakuba Saguru' walked over and asked this in his usual perfectly cultured voice before kneeling down by Shinichi and shooting him a rather wide and most un-Hakubalike grin once Agasa's back turned to them as he began to exit the room. "I figured tantei-san would be quicker than tantei-han since I didn't have to do the tan body makeup for him and I was right," whispered Kaito under his breath to his friend in his normal voice before getting back up and clearing his throat as he walked towards Agasa a bit. It took Shinichi a couple seconds to realize that 'tantei-san' was referring to Hakuba and 'tantei-han' to Hattori. _I see...tantei-kun, tantei-san and tantei-han, huh? _

"So Kudo Shinichi asked you to call me and have me work this case, eh? I wonder how he knew I'd be in this neck of the woods tonight. Well, no matter. There's a murder to solve. What does Kudo think is going on here so far? You didn't provide me with many details other than that a papyrophobe apparently fixed himself a rather fatal cocktail after leaving a suicide note." Shinchi was first amazed that there was actually a name somewhere for the phobia of paper, then deeply grateful for how quickly that Kaito could think on his feet, the trait most likely having been developed over the course of his brazen, larcenous career. And he was also thankful currently for the fact that Kaito really was almost _creepily_, eerily good at becoming whoever he was disguising himself as; the master thief somehow managed to exude that same slightly standoffish, superior aura that Shinichi has sensed around Hakuba. All he was missing was the hawk, and Shinichi figured that if he was questioned on its absense Kaito would come up with a brilliant excuse on the spot.


	3. Ginza Murder Mystery, Part 2

Whee!

* * *

"You know, the victim appears to have been faking that fear of paper."

Shinichi looked up at Saguru- or rather, Kaito- and gave him a quizzical look. "Why do you say that?" After a brief moment, Shinichi realized that he had almost completely forgotten that it was really the master thief in one of his many expertly executed disguises that he was speaking to and not the actual half-British meitantei. But maybe that wasn't really a _bad _thing, Shinichi figured upon further consideration; it helped him to keep his guard up and to be very careful to affect his typical and carefully practiced little-boy mannerisms while he tried to steer the police as well as his currently concealed friend towards the clues and hints he found. Not that it appeared that Kaito _needed_ any piloting at the moment, of course, but Shinichi needed to be sure the 'car' was headed down the right road to the final destination of the truth.

"Well, I found this, _ahem_, during carrying out an investigation of the crime scene in his bedroom. It was in a secret safe that was hidden behind a picture up on his wall. So he must not really have been papyrophobic, at least if he's the one that put it there." At the strange, vaguely suspicious looks he was receiving from the gathered police on the scene as well as Shinichi's slightly panicked expression, Kaito rather quickly and flatly added "I found the combination written down in a book on his nightstand by his bed. Don't worry, I'll hand this paper over for proper processing as soon as my young associate Conan here makes a copy of it."

_Hah. More like you were nosing around the place and then cracked the safe's lock once you found it while you were snooping, _thought Shinichi rather dryly before taking the paper that Kaito offered him with a wide childlike smile and trying to find a portable photocopier machine- sometimes the police brought one to scenes thanks to the triplicate paperwork they often had to file. Of course, Shinichi still wasn't quite sure how he felt about Kaito's other less than legal occupation, but if his...rather unique skill set would help them solve this murder then Shinichi supposed a blind eye could be at least somewhat turned. Especially with this particular case, which was pretty much a big, rather messy lump of possible murder suspects, confusion and highly irritated, angry party guests that wanted to leave _yesterday_ at the present time.

_He's right, about the paper thing, too. Why would a guy that wants nothing to do with paper -supposedly phobic of it, in fact- have a paper locked up in a safe, and a hidden safe at that? _Shinichi unfolded the paper Kaito had given him to find a small note from the boy tucked in along with it. After glancing over the note, which simply read _Looks like he really didn't have the money this house would make you think he did _in rather rushed handwriting, Shinichi then carefully studied the paper and found that it was some very recent and rather dire financial statements full of red ink concerning the victim's high-end architecture firm that did seem to point to Kisouke Jiruki not being nearly as financially solvent as he seemed at first glance.

"Yes, his firm hasn't been doing so well this year and still _is_ on some shaky ground, to be frank with you. But Kisouke felt that he could turn it all around, with a little help financially in the interim that is. In fact, he came to me and asked if I could try and assist with pushing through a loan at one of the bank branches I manage for him two weeks ago," began an older voice that Shinichi was soon able to attach to a plump, white-haired elderly gentleman in a very expensive-looking dark blue tailored suit that was being interviewed in the room Shinichi was currently walking by. "Which is why, I confess, this suicide came as such a complete and total shock to me. I had _just_ told him over the phone earlier this afternoon that the board of directors had finally gotten off their duffs about the decision and did decide to grant him the loan. He had everything to live for after that phone call, why would he kill himself? Especially right in the middle of a party that he was throwing?"

"Do you know if he told anyone else about that loan, Akita-kun?" The young male keiji seemed to not be sharing the current theory that it had been a murder.

"I don't believe so, but he was planning to make a big announcement of some sort at this costume ball," replied the elderly man with a thoughtful frown. "He was rather secretive about what it was. Maybe it was about the company getting that loan...? But no, that wouldn't make sense, I just told him about three hours before the party started that he was going to be approved and he had begun planning this party at least two weeks ago."

"That's interesting," muttered Kaito from directly above Shinichi's head as he, too, listened in on the conversation. "Hey, did you hear if they ever found the container for the poison that was used in his drink in the room where he died? None of the police are talking to me, they're still too busy interviewing people. Find a copier, by the way? There was one over there a bit ago but they seem to have moved it."

"No, I haven't heard anything like that, Saguru-niisan. And I couldn't find a copier, I'm sorry." Shinichi nodded his head rather deliberately to the left as he spoke and also accompanied the gesture with a rather pointed glance the same way, indicating a lonely-looking corner where he could safely toss aside his child's mask as long as they were very quiet during their conversation.

"Well maybe that should be a part of the puzzle that we figure out first. Poison doesn't just magically appear in something or someone after all."

"Yeah, of course you're right," replied Shinichi as they finished settling into the corner, Kaito careful to squat down in order to seem like he was merely indulging a curious child instead of speaking to an intellectual equal that through a bizarre twist of fate was trapped in a child's body. "Did you find anything besides the safe while you were in the bedroom?"

Kaito shuddered instantly, though he managed to suppress its full strength and Shinichi could see horror and revulsion rapidly flying through the blue eyes that were currently tucked behind gold-tinted hazel contacts before the thief calmed himself back down nearly as quickly as the strange, sudden fit had begun. Kaito then offered Shinichi a mild glare of annoyance. "Oh man, you just _had_ to remind me," he near-whispered in his regular voice. "There was a...a..." Kaito shuddered lightly again before finally muttering the single word "halibut" so quietly while closing his eyes that Shinichi had almost not even made the word out.

"A..._halibut_?" Well, this was a most interesting development- and not just that he'd apparently found a fish in the room. Did Kuroba have a fear associated with that particular species of fish or something along those lines? It has been the first time that the other boy seemed unable to control his emotions, which seemed to be well, a _thing _with Kuroba for lack of a better term that Shinichi had almost immediately noticed even though they hadn't known each long or that well at all- a constant want or perhaps even a compulsion on the other boy's part to be in total control of his emotions at all times. _No time to worry about that now, we have a case to solve!_

"Yes." Kaito swallowed, forcing himself to completely calm back down and slip into Hakuba Saguru's role fully again. "A partially eaten halibut, or it at least looked like it. Raw, sitting on a plate by the window. Something with claws had gotten to it, a cat I'd guess." No way he was telling Kudo that he wasn't certain of the extent of damage to the fish because he had, uhh, rather hastily exited the room once he'd realized what it was that had been sitting on that plate. Even though his logical side had _known_ that the fish was very dead- and in this particular case even partially consumed- it had still been a...a _fish_. Though why that...that _thing _had been on the windowsill was an interesting mystery in and of itself, because he hadn't noticed any of the usual signs of pet ownership in the areas of the house that he'd explored, like a dish or a litter box in the case of an indoor cat.

"And the plate was up on the windowsill?" It was as if some internal switch had been flipped on in the tantei; Shinichi's eyes suddenly lit up brightly and his whole demeanor shifted as he focused on Kaito so intently that Kaito felt a small shiver go up his spine before he remembered that they _weren't_ at a heist he was pulling, therefore he was in no danger of being caught- at least not at the moment, though he certainly wasn't expecting Kudo to treat him any different at his upcoming heists where they were no longer the friends Kudo and Kuroba but rather the adversaries Edogawa and Kid. 'Conan's' lips then curled into a knowing smirk that was rather unmistakably adult before he added "Things are beginning to come together- at least how the murderer got the poison into the glass. Which one of the guests did it is a while different story though."

"Well if you want I'll show you which window I found it at, if they let me back into the room. We've probably spent too much time in this stupid corner anyhow." Kaito knelt back up with his knees giving a brief twinge since they'd been in the same bent position for so long and started walking towards the bedroom where the victim had been found, arriving there after two staircases and explaining himself numerous times to the police that were still trying to heard some of the party guests around and keep them out of the crime scene and everybody's hair. _Hah, it's like herding cats, _he thought bemusedly before pointing Shinichi towards the large wooden door that was marked off with tape. "In there." This was said in Hakuba's voice rather loudly, and it made Shinichi pay attention to their surroundings immediately.

"What are you doing, sending a kid into a murder scene like that? That's also interfering with evidence and-"

Shinichi knew that it would probably be a good performance as soon as he watched Kaito completely finish slipping into the vaguely superior posture and facial expression that Hakuba normally wore before he turned around and interrupted the policeman with a very imperious "You don't need to worry about Conan here. He's assisted with investigations plenty of times previously." Shinichi suppressed a snicker at the rather massive understatement. "The head of the investigation here has already authorized my assistant and myself to check for clues. I find that a child's perspective tends to bring new and different things to light." With that, he ducked under the crime scene tape and Shinichi quickly followed behind. Both boys took a careful surveillance of the room and made sure that they were alone before they began talking quietly.

"Well it _was_ on that windowsill right there. I don't know what happened to it, but it was on that one to the left."

"You're positive?"

"Photographic memory, thank you." This was said rather curtly and shortly while the other boy glared lightly at him, and Shinichi then remembered that that was one of the reasons why Kaitou Kid was so slippery- He could case a place sometimes many weeks beforehand and have perfect recall of every detail of the premises during the heist.

"Yeah, sorry. So since it _was_ there, we need to figure out how it got moved. That plate is critical evidence if I'm correct about what happened here."

"Leave it to me." Kaito's lighthearted tone caused Shinichi to turn to him and cock an eyebrow. "Finding exits is something of specialty of mine."


	4. Ginza Murder Mystery Finale

WHAT, an update? ;) Need to dust off my older stories…Enjoy, and updates for this one should be far more frequent going forward. :)

* * *

"So why do you think that someone set a cat up in this room? At least I'm guessing that a cat was what the-" Kaito's mouth twitched ever so slightly under his makeup as he pointed and indicated the spot where the mysteriously vanishing fish had been on the windowsill- "_fish _was left out for."

"More than likely it was for a cat, yeah. We need to see if we can find more evidence of a cat being in this room than just a partially eaten fish before we start jumping to conclusions like that, though." Shinichi continued to study the configuration of the bedroom that the architect had been found dead in, trying to puzzle out just what had happened and wishing that he had more evidence to work with besides a niggling suspicion in the back of his mind that the cat hadn't actually been trained, but instead merely placed in the room for some other purpose. Well, if a cat had been in the room at all that was; he still had yet to find hard evidence of a feline occupant.

"How's a whole bunch of what looks like cat hair work for proof?" inquired Kaito a few minutes later, snapping Shinichi out of his concentration and slow, careful examination of the area. He walked over to where Kaito was standing and noticed what looked like a large amount of grey cat hair pressed well down into the tan-colored carpet. "Looks like not only was there a cat in here but it probably was in here for quite a while, judging by how much hair there is and how it's matted down into the carpet like that. This was hidden under that end table and rug over there by someone, too- you can see the four indents over by the bed where this table was probably originally sitting." Kaito indicated an expensive-looking end table that was next to him.

"It looks like it was probably a long-haired cat, too." Shinichi plucked an inch-long single silver-colored hair from the rug and gave it a once-over.

"Well, maybe we should go out and look on the other side of this window and see what we can find, eh? That plate sure didn't remove itself and I doubt the police would let anyone in this room or let them walk back out with something that had been in here." Kaito eyed the table that he'd just put back into place by the bed with a half-smirk. "Although who knows? Them missing something as obvious as this table being moved doesn't bode too well for their powers of observation now does it?"

"What makes you think that the police didn't remove the plate during their investigation?"

"I asked, actually; there wasn't a plate when they did their investigation of the room. But I know for a fact that there was a plate sitting on that windowsill when I looked in here a couple of minutes ago before they initially sealed the room off."

Kaito seemed completely sure of what he had seen (and Shinichi also found himself somewhat unwilling to doubt Kaito's eidetic memory,) so the meitantei decided to continue at least for the time being with the theory that there had indeed been a plate of halibut sitting on the windowsill. "Let's go then. Maybe there'll be footprints or something outside."

Five minutes later, the pair stood outside of the window they were fairly certain was the one that the plate of fish had been spirited away from. Unfortunately, they found next to nothing in the way of footprints or any other possible clues thanks to the ground being very dry.

"Whoever it was, it looks like they were very careful," sighed Shinichi in disgust as he looked at the annoyingly clue-barren area. "Of course, we need to figure out the motive too…"

"Probably money. Well, him not having any even though he was obviously trying to act like he did, that is. That financial stuff I found in the bedroom safe was a sea of red ink, as you probably noticed earlier" replied Kaito confidently as he continued his own examination of the window before letting out a delighted cry. "Hah- this right here is the exact reason that I wear gloves at my job." Neither boy felt the need to mention exactly which job. "Here's a nice, fat thumbprint right under this sill here, and it's not even smeared too badly."

Shinichi moved in to see what Kaito was talking about and quickly confirmed that his friend was correct. Right in the part of the sill where you'd place your hand to balance yourself while lifting or shutting a difficult window was a well-preserved thumbprint that was a very strong indicator of guilt, depending on who the thumb print would turn out to belong to and the story that they gave for how it had come to be at that location. "Yeah, if we find more evidence tying whoever left this thumbprint to the murder it should be enough to make a case."

Kaito cleared his throat before announcing "I think I'll go report this find to the keibu in charge" in Hakuba Saguru's imperious tone. "Hopefully it will help narrow down this ridiculously large suspect pool."

* * *

An hour later, five irritated-looking suspects whose fingerprints were a close approximate match and three tired-looking police officers were situated in a common room, along with Shinichi and Kaito. Lined up on the large couch and love seat in the huge living room were the victim's older brother, younger brother, personal assistant, maid and bookeeper.

"So, you five know why you're here," began one of the detectives in a dour tone as she flipped open a notebook. "We found a pretty incriminating thumbprint near the crime scene that you all seem to match pretty closely with."

"And at least one of you five _also_ knew about the victim's _real_ phobia- his fear of cats. The irrational fear that he used a very well-faked fear of paper to cover up, and quite successfully I might add." Kaito moved forward and began pacing slightly in front of the couch where the suspects were seated, one of Hakuba Saguru's favored tactics during confrontations; Kaito had often seen the meitantei pace in the same restless way to fill the minutes before Kaitou Kid was due on the scene.

_Boy, Kuroba sure does know how to ham it up, _thought Shinichi with some amusement as he watched his friend's performance from the corner that he was mostly hidden in, a spot that Shinichi could send the other teen signals from if need be. Of course, that thespian ability likely came with the territory of Kaitou also being Kaitou Kid- his heists were really just as much public performances as they were robberies, after all. Now all Kaito had to do was actually prove the theory that the two of them had developed during the hour they'd waited for the suspect pool to be narrowed down by the cursory examination of fingerprints. _Then we have to get one of them to confess to the crime. The one that's closest to him and would know that closely held secret of his..._

"There are five of you in total that have fingerprints that seem to match," continued Kaito confidently in Saguru's voice, "but only one of you was not _only_ close enough to the victim to know of the late Kisouke Jiruki's _true_ phobia -cats- but _also _to know the habit that he always engaged in to calm himself down after a cat-induced panic attack." He paused and delivered one of Hakuba's signature knowing smirks. "A nice, stiff glass of brandy, nearly twice the amount that he usually partook in after his dinner, in fact. Of course, it proved to be very fatal for him since one of you took the liberty of lacing that brandy very heavily with arsenic. I doubt that the brandy even tasted off to the victim since he was in the throes of recovering from a bad, cat-induced shock to the system."

"How do even you know there was a cat in here? That guy was so ridiculous about keeping things clean, there's no way he'd willingly have an animal in his house, much less his bedroom."

"That," replied Kaito, "is precisely how I know that there was a cat in here, as a matter of fact. There was a lovely collection of fur matted down into the rug hidden under an end table that our fine officers managed to overlook during their investigation. Of course, that's largely because they didn't know what to look for in the first place."

_Don't forget the cat hair on the bottle that the police found, Kuroba, _thought Shinichi pensively as he continued to watch the confrontation. _It defininitely indicates that either the victim actually touched the cat somehow, or that whoever removed the cat had fur on their hands and moved the bottle around after the victim died while they were probably in the process of cleaning up the cat fur that they could from the room._

"The police _also_ discovered a large amount of cat hair on an around the arsenic-laced bottle that was removed from Yamada Kisouke's bedroom," continued Kaito. "Someone decided to clean up the scene of the crime quite a bit afterwards." He looked at each of the five suspects in turn. "I would imagine that the other fingerprints that aren't the victims that they'll doubtless find on that bottle will probably prove _quite_ revealing, wouldn't you agree?" He offered another Hakuba Saguru smirk. "Things would likely go at least _slightly_ easier for whichever one of you it is if you confess before those results come back."

* * *

**BROTHER ARRESTED IN BLACKMAIL REVENGE MURDER, WITH ASSISTANCE FROM HAKUBA SAGURU**

**YOUNGER BROTHER USED CAT TO KILL, SAY POLICE**

**BROTHER ALLEGEDLY KILLED HIS OLDER BROTHER DUE TO LONG-TERM BLACKMAIL**

**HAKUBA SAGURU SOLVES GINZA SLAYING**

"Now, I'll ask once again." Hakuba Saguru gave Kuroba Kaito a glare that would have frozen an iceberg. "What do you know about this, Kuroba?"

Kaito looked at the headlines that had been strewn across his school desk and shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know what you're talking about, Hakuba. Do you have amnesia or something? You solved a murder case over in Ginza last night, or so it looks like here. The guy was throwing a party for his firm, and he was going to announce his big bid on an upcoming project downtown, but his younger brother supposedly was getting tired of being bled dry and decided he wasn't gonna cough up any money anymore. So he poisoned the guy."

"Kuroba," Saguru hissed as he leaned down and continued to glare, "you and I _both_ know that I was in England until 3:05 AM this morning Japanese Standard Time, when my plane landed here. I didn't clear customs until nearly four AM, and got to go home and sleep for three hours before coming here." He picked up the papers off of Kaito's desk with an angry huff. "There is no absolutely no possible way that I was in Ginza last night to solve this case. Whoever this impostor was also apparently suceeded quite well at impersonating me. So much so that an inspector who's actually worked a few cases for me was completely fooled." He glared at Kaito again.

"So maybe Kaitou Kid decided to try out another career," shrugged Kaito as he began some overdue homework. "The guy _is_ a master of disguise, after all."

"Well, he should have _asked_ me to borrow my identity first. Not that I would have approved the request _had_ he asked me," snapped Saguru before he returned to his own desk. "I suppose I should just be thankful that he didn't completely botch the case while he was at it."

_He's ticked, all right, but it wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting actually. _Kaito managed to text this on his phone to Shinichi while successfully suppressing a rather Kaitou Kid-esque grin.


	5. A Twofold Heist

Enjoy! Doing a bit of research for Gyakuun and Jikkendai at the moment; hopefully this will make up for the wait.

* * *

"Young master...is your backpack _moving_?" Konsuke Jii looked into his rearview mirror with a large amount of trepidation as he watched the oversized white backpack Kaito sometimes used when he needed extra equipment during a heist move around slightly in between the bumps and jolts on the road, as if it were trying to settle into a more comfortable position while resting on the van's floor.

"Oh, that. Don't worry about it Jii-chan, it's just an assistant I brought along" replied Kaito airily as he finished cleaning Kaitou Kid's monocle while the van bumped and thumped over the gravel road that let to an abandoned storage shed Kaito and Jii had decided would be perfect for hiding behind. In fact, they'd been shocked when the mansion's security detail had seemed to totally overlook such an obvious weak point during their patrols. "We discussed my bringing him along last week, remember?" He looked down at his watch. "Fifteen minutes to showtime, right?"

"Yes. Nakamori-keibu is already laying traps at the front and back doors, and Hakuba Saguru is also standing guard at the service entrance." Jii pointed to a paper layout of the mansion that Kaito was studying. "They've also got patrolmen placed here, here and here," he finished as he pointed at different entrances on the map.

"Too bad for them that I'm not actually going in using any of those ways then, isn't it?" laughed Kaito before he placed the large monocle on his face and slipped behind the cool, collected mask of Kaitou Kid. "It's also a shame that I won't get to use the glider to make my entrance, but there are no skyscrapers around and I'm going to be carrying some extra weight," he finished in the colder, deeper voice that he used while employing his alter ego's persona.

Five minutes later, Kaito lifted the backpack up and placed it onto his back before hopping out of the van and dashing over to the service shed while placing his wireless headset that kept him in communication with Jii into his ear. "You can open the bag now," he muttered very quietly as he began breaking into the well-padlocked shed after placing the heavy bag back down, which began to squirm and unzip.

"The next time that you decide to make me travel like that I'm just going to hit you with a soccer ball and walk instead," snapped Shinichi as the bag opened and his head and upper body emerged, his head covered with a black stocking cap and his body encased in a black T-shirt, black jeans and black tennis shoes. "And don't think I won't." He finished climbing out of the bag and leveled a glare at the thief.

"_You_ were the one that insisted on me smuggling you out of your room like that so that you didn't have to risk walking down the block and being spotted after you were supposed to be in bed." Kaito shrugged nonchalantly and wore a bored look as he continued to rapidly dispatch the padlocks that were in place. "Besides, I _did_ put you on the backseat originally but Jii-chan had to slam on the brakes when someone cut him off driving here."

"Yeah, I noticed." Shinichi continued to half-glare at his friend while pointing to a large goose egg on the side of his head that had been a result of said brake-slamming after he'd tumbled off of the seat. "I just hope you're right about this guy having regular contact with the Organization."

"The guy's up to his neck in black jackets and hats from what Jii-chan and i have seen over the past couple weeks. The fact that he happens to own a huge ruby was what initially made us check him out, but he's definitely in deep with them all right" replied Kaito evenly in Kid's voice as he opened the shed's rickety door and motioned for Shinichi to follow him inside. "I figured while I'm...ahem...providing a distraction, you can see what you can find on those guys. I'll point you to his office once we're inside. And crack any locks that need cracking, of course, although I may not be able to get back to do it right away."

"Alright. How long do you think it's going to take?" Shinichi followed Kaito into the small shed, where Kaito lifted up a grate and shined a light down into the tunnel he and Jii had spent the past week and a half slowly digging while in the guise of yard workers.

Kaito merely offered a Kid grin. "That depends on how long it takes to actually get into the house, doesn't it? Now come on, let's get going." He started heading down the ladder. "When you come down be sure to shut that lid behind you, will you? Oh, and take this." He reached up from the hole and offered Shinichi a smaller version of his own in-ear headset and a flashlight.

Shinichi climbed down the ladder a bit, shut the lid and then finished climbing down before turning on the flashlight and placing the headset in his ear. "How did you guys move all the dirt? This had to have taken several truckloads at least-"

"Luckily for us there's construction going on on a new road down the street; moving the dirt wasn't so hard when there were a bunch more beat-up trucks around doing the exact same thing. And actually, the digging itself really wasn't so bad either since we did it in bits and pieces over these past couple weeks." Kaito stopped after several more paces and indicated a ladder. "Here's your stop- this leads up to the guy's office and he's out of town for the month so he won't be in there. I actually had to deliver the heist riddle to his groundskeeper." Shinichi climbed up the (much more rickety) ladder and shoved the false lid away to reveal a pitch-black room. "Just keep the flashlight out of the windows. I don't want them knowing anyone's in here until I announce myself," came Kaito's final echoey admonition as he continued down the tunnel.

_Like you had to tell me that? _thought Shinichi in irritation before that ire became overridden by curiosity as he cautiously turned on the flashlight and began a cursory examination of the room, the meitantei immediately homing in on a large desk as one of Kaitou Kid's "Ladies and gentlemen" speeches rang out from a set of speakers that Kaito and Jii had rigged up earlier in the week. _Although I am actually kind of glad Kuroba had me come, since we'll hopefully find more information on the Black Organization in the process. _Shinichi also had more than a slight suspicion that Kaito had chosen his current target with both the gem and possibly finding out more about the Black Organization equally in mind, though he wan't going to interrupt his friend's heist to ask.

"Ho, ho- they're sure scampering around now after your introduction," chuckled Jii in Shinichi's ear as Shinichi put on an oversized pair of latex gloves and began trying to see if any of the desk's drawers were open. "The air must be a lovely shade of blue around Nakamori-keibu, judging by his language on the police band."

"That's Nakamori-keibu for you," replied Kaito with a chuckle. "Find anything in there yet, Holmes?"

_Ha, ha, Kuroba. You're _so_ funny. _There was _going_ to be a discussion about that code name later. "Not yet. I haven't even been able to find a-" One of the desk's drawers finally gave way and revealed a bunch of file folders. "Scratch that. We'll see what I find in here."

"If this heist stays on target you've got about ten more minutes to poke around. I'd suggest you get cracking, hmm?"

"Yeah, yeah." Shinichi began rifling through the different files, not really expecting to find anything in such an obvious spot but still willing to give it a shot after going through such pains to get here and Kaito arranging the heist. "Just looks like a bunch of information on some corporations so far, but I'll see what else I can find in here."

"You might try checking out the sitting room that's across the hall from where you're at if you can get there safely, Holmes. There are police all over the place now, but not in that wing" came Jii's voice after a bit. "Have you gotten to the jewel's room yet, young master?"

"Looking at it right now, although they've added a few new toys into the mix from what I can see. There weren't heat-sensitive laser alarms when we checked into the security here last week," grumbled Kaito.

"Hmm. The main electrical panel for this place seems to be in this room," muttered Shinichi as he wandered over to the huge painted-over electrical panel that he'd noticed sitting open thanks to a policeman that had walked out of the room after inspecting it for tampering. "If I were to just _happen_ to trip a few of those breakers while looking for the one for the guy's office and one of those breakers was for the room with the jewel it wouldn't be _my_ fault, now would it?"

* * *

Jii laughed, followed by Kaito saying "If you somehow manage to trip the one labeled 13b that _might_ be the one for this room" with a distinct laugh in his voice. He'd never expected any kind of direct assistance with his heists from Shinichi- the other boy _was_ still a meitantei after all even if he was physically trapped in a smaller body, and they were technically on the opposite sides of the law when he was Kaitou Kid. Kaito counted himself lucky, however, that Shinichi _also_ seemed to have no qualms about walking a tightrope between those sides at times when it was needed to get to the truth- or to get more information about the Organization, as was the case currently.

"Whoops," came Shinichi's voice over the headpiece a few moments later as the area surrounding Kaito went dark and several frantic police officers tried to scramble into formation around the gem with Nakamori barking through their two-way radios. Kaito grinned as he pulled out the police uniform and latex mask that he always kept on him out of his pack- one of three or four disguises that had saved his butt during either heists or getaways more times than he wanted to recall. He quickly pulled it on over his suit before finishing his climb up the ladder and strolled into the room confidently, taking a position in the ring of police that was surrounding the gem.

"Kid's gonna show up any minute," muttered the officer next to Kaito. "Fine time for the power to go out. They had _just_ sent someone over to check the breakers a few minutes ago too..."

"He's slippery," replied Kaito mildly with a nod before voices on the radio began discussing finding the breakers tripped and Nakamori swearing that he would have whichever one of the officers had goofed and left the panel unguarded put on paperwork and toilet duty back at headquarters for the next year- or maybe two. Realizing that his window of opportunity would be over as soon as the breaker was reset, Kaito slid backwards slowly towards the case and quickly cut a hole in it with a glass cutter before half of the lights came back on. "It'll be a few minutes until they can bring the system all the way back online, don't any of you dare leave that room!" _Don't worry, Nakamori-keibu. I wouldn't dream of it. _"Jii-chan, Alternate Plan F needs to be set in motion- I did manage to at least cut the glass. Kind of stuck in here, Nakamori-keibu ordered us not to leave the gem room just now" Kaito hissed under his breath when he finally had a moment away from the police before returning to the circle of police that were guarding the gem.

"You're disguised, I take it. Time for my best Kaitou Kid impersonation then. Give me five minutes to change and get in there."

"I found some things that look interesting, but I gotta get out of this room and past the police," grumbled Shinichi immediately after Jii finished. "They're swarming the fuse box right now trying to fix it."

"So provide them with a distraction. What about that stupid soccer ball of yours that you've tried to take my head off with a few times, Holmes? Break a window or something." There was no reply, but Kaito heard what sounded like shattering glass and yelling police down the hallway after a minute or so. Kaito could tell how much the officers who'd been ordered to stay put wanted to go investigate the noise, but they had to settle for asking what had happened via their radios and being informed that 'something round flew through the window really fast.' The next few minutes were spent with various officers both wondering what the object was and where it had come from before Nakamori broke in.

"Alright, everyone look sharp dammit! Kid's just arrived- Hakuba spotted him climbing in the third-story window. Get up there, except for those who are in the room with the gem! Start guarding the entrances to the room NOW!"

Kaito gladly began guarding the west entrance- the one that would be most in line with the cut glass, since he'd be using his card gun to shoot it out when Jii arrived and announced his 'Air Bullet' trick that he would use to both remove the glass and fog up the room. In reality, Kaito would be shooting a pair of his fog cards at the cut glass.

"I'm glad you're all here to witness my newest trick," came Kid's voice from above them as Kaito grew puzzled. _Jii hasn't perfected that voice changer he was working on yet, how is he able to imitate my Kid voice so perfectly? _He then recalled that Shinichi had mentioned using a voice changer when he solved cases and suppressed a grateful laugh. "Tonight I'll be giving a demonstration of a fascinating new illusion: the Air Bullet. Not even bulletproof glass is safe from me now. Observe!"

Kaito waited for Jii to appear on top of the case, then swish his cape dramatically before subtly drawing his gun and firing twice while all eyes were on Jii. As the room instantly filled with fog after the glass shattered thanks to the card, Kaito dashed forward and grabbed the ruby out of the case in the confusion before yelling "I'll check the hallway!" and darting out of the fog-filled room with a Kid grin on his face. _Well, it was messy but we got it done...and hopefully Kudo managed to hang on to whatever it was he found on the Organization, if it turns out to be something. _He approached the tunnel and stripped out of his police outfit after climbing back down and securing the lid. He then repacked and dashed for the tunnel entrance.

"That was great!" Kaito let out a laugh as he joined Jii and Shinichi in the tunnel and they headed back to the van. "That voice changer of your sure is handy."

"Yeah, well Konsuke-ojisan told me he couldn't imitate your voice. It's not like I had a choice." Shinichi followed the lie by pointedly pulling out a pair of thin file folders that were stashed under his T-shirt. "I did manage to find what looks like some personnel information that might tie into the Organization. There's no telling with those guys, though."

"And I got the the gem, so it wasn't a total loss." Kaito grinned and tossed the gem up in the air before catching it. "Let's get going. I sure wouldn't want to be you if Ran wakes up and sees you gone."


	6. A Weekend Away, Part 1

Thanks to my awesome regular reviewers! You guys rock, and really help the plot bunnies stay hopping. :) I'm going to try and start writing longer chapters, too, since it seems that some readers would appreciate that.

* * *

"So who's that little boy you've been spending time after school with lately, Kaito?"

_You probably wouldn't believe me even if I _did_ tell you, Aoko. _Not that Kaito ever planned to reveal his friend's 'little' secret to anyone else, of course. Kaito snickered inwardly, but never let his gaze wander up from the textbook that he was pretending to study, hoping against hope that Aoko would change the subject so that he could pack his things and get on the bus back to his house. _Oh man, Kudo would probably try to kill me if he heard that pun...well, either try to kill me or nail me with that soccer ball of his. _Kaito wasn't quite sure which one would be more painful.

"Kaito." This was followed by Aoko grabbing the book of out Kaito's hands.

"Hey Aoko, what did you do that for-"

"To get your attention, of course. There's no way that you were _really_ studying," Aoko replied primly as she crossed her arms and adjusted the book's weight against her chest. "Anyhow, I was thinking that we could ask him to be our kid for this coming weekend."

Kaito's face slowly shifted from irritation to complete bafflement before finally settling somewhere between horror and shock. "Uh, say _what?"_ he finally managed after a few stunned moments as he rose out of his desk.

Aoko sighed and shook her head before setting Kaito's book back down on top of his desk with a firm thud loud enough for the students who were still clearing out of the room at the end of the day to turn and look back at the noise. "I _knew_ it. You weren't paying any attention _at all _during our psychology class earlier today, were you?"

Kaito blinked before he grabbed the book on the desk and stuffed it into his backpack. "Umm, apparently not." _I probably shouldn't have let myself get so caught up in the information Kudo managed to find on the Black Organization during our investigation last week, but that class always drags on for what feels like forever. _

"How are you supposed to get good grades when you don't pay any attention at all to our homework assignments?!" Aoko demanded before she began walking alongside Kaito. "You should have a handout stuffed somewhere in that backpack of yours that talks about what we're supposed to do." She offered Kaito a half-meant glare before continuing as they started walking. "We have to take full-time care of a child under the age of twelve on our half-day Saturday and all day on Sunday too- with thier parent's permission, of course. Then we need to write a five-page essay about child-raising techniques and the psychology behind them based on our experiences that's due by the end of the day next Thursday."

"Isn't there another choice, or another thing we can do? What if someone didn't know a little kid, or they didn't get permission from the kid's parents?" _Especially since the 'little kid' you have in mind for this thing is really our age._

"There _is_ another option- we can just write about it instead. But if you choose to do that then the paper has to be twice as long- ten pages." Aoko gave Kaito a knowing look. "And no, no double spacing allowed, Kaito." She paused and adjusted her sock. "The assignment is _also _worth almost twenty percent of our final grade," she finished before she began heading to her bus and Kaito began heading toward his.

_Dang it! _Kaito felt certain at points that Nakamori Aoko was just as capable of reading minds as Koizumi Akako was. _Well, there goes double-spacing._ _Kudo probably isn't gonna like me asking, but I'd way rather write five pages than ten. Plus, maybe we can get some research done if Aoko doesn't get too nosy. _

* * *

"You, uh...you really _are _serious about this being an actual homework assignment, aren't you Kuroba?" Shinichi had been completely convinced that Kaito was trying to play some kind of bizarre prank on him for the first several minutes of the call, until it had become clear from his friend's continued insistence that this was truly a school homework assignment- and one that would comprise a good portion of his final grade to boot.

"That's what I've _been_ trying to tell you for the last ten minutes now, Kudo" growled Kaito in irritation before he heaved a deep sigh and continued on in a lighter tone. "And believe me, it sure wasn't _my_ idea- Aoko was the one that brought it up after school today, actually. But then I started thinking about it, and maybe we can get some serious research on the Black Organization done thanks to those notes we snagged if we're not too obvious about it around Aoko."

"Well, I guess that's true. I'll have to let Ran know that I'm going away for the weekend though." He began rummaging through his clothes to start packing. "And you do_ also _realize that you owe me _bigtime_ for this, right Kuroba?"

"Why do I not like how you just said that very much at all, Kudo?"

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one that gets to have their homework assignment cut in half," replied Shinichi evenly as he packed with one hand and held his cell phone with the other. "When exactly are you coming to pick me up?"

"I'll catch the first bus that way after school lets out tomorrow- should be to Mouri-ojisan's office at about one-thirty or so," replied his friend before Kaito hung up.

"Ran-neechan," called Shinichi as he finished packing two days' worth of clothing. "Kaito-niisan is going to pick me up after school tomorrow. I'm going to help him with a homework assignment this weekend."

"Conan, what makes you think that Kuroba-kun needs your help with a homework assignment?" asked Ran with a laugh as she entered Shinichi's room. "I'm sure that he can do his homework."

_I'll bet Ran will think it sounds just as crazy as I thought it did. _"He has a homework assignment that he has to watch a kid my age for," explained Shinichi. _Well, a kid my _apparent_ age anyhow. _"He and Aoko-neesan are going to watch me today and tomorrow then write a paper about it for school," he finished with the false, childlike brightness that had become a rather unwilling second nature to him.

"A...homework assignment watching a child?" Ran frowned lightly and studied Shinichi closely for a few moments before she shrugged. "Well, I guess it's alright as long as Nakamori-chan is going to be taking care of you too," she finished as she knelt down and patted Shinichi's head. "No offense to Kuroba-kun or anything but I don't think that he's the best influence on you." She smiled warmly and stood back up before beginning to repack Shinichi's suitcase.

Shinichi squelched the momentary impulse to burst out laughing. _Oh man, you have _NO _idea. _"What do you mean, Ran-neechan?"

"Well, for one thing he dyed Dad's best chair neon green last week- along with Dad's white suit since Dad was the one that sat on the exploding dye packet _in_ the chair." She looked upwards as she continued straightening the clothing in the backpack, apparently recalling (or trying to recall) other incidents. "I know he didn't mean to leave it there but Dad's still fuming over that one because the cleaning was really expensive even with Kuroba-kun agreeing to pay for part of it. Then before that there was the dove that landed right on Dad's client's head...the client that turned out to be absolutely, deathly afraid of birds, remember?" She finished straightening out the clothing and zipped up the backpack. "Make sure that you bring your cell phone and your charger with you tomorrow, OK Conan?"

* * *

"She brought up the stupid chair _again_?" sighed Kaito in a quiet, weary tone as he settled into the bus seat alongside his friend. "I paid for half of the cleaning even though it happened because Mouri-ojisan wasn't watching where he was sitting. Those dye packets are hard to miss if you're actually _paying attention_!"

"She brought up the dove too," replied Shinichi with a smug-looking smirk. "Maybe you shouldn't bring the dove that knows how to open its cage over next time."

"I didn't _bring_ him, he _followed_ me. I've told you that more than once," groused Kaito. "I think I've trained him to follow me around a little _too_ well. Every time I leave to go anywhere he opens his cage and tries to follow me. I forgot that I left my window open that day." He suddenly sat up straighter and hissed "Here comes Aoko" before she got on the bus and found the two of them sitting in the very back row of seats.

"There you two are," she began brightly as she slid in to take up the third part of the open seat. "Thanks for agreeing to spend the weekend with us, Conan-kun. Did Mouri-san make sure that you have all of your clothes and everything to stay a couple of days?"

"Yep. Ran-neechan helped me pack my stuff last night, see?" replied Shinichi as he pointed to the backpack under his seat. "I also brought my phone and charger like she said to."

"That's good. We'll go to Kaito's house and drop your things off, then go to the store to pick up things for dinner. Maybe you should let Mouri-san know that you caught the bus with us safely, too."

_Actually, that probably is a good idea- I haven't called her yet, but she should be out of school by now. _"Yeah, Ran-neechan should be out from school by now," Shinichi nodded as he punched the speed-dial on his phone.

"Hello, Conan. Did you make it safely on the bus with Nakamori-chan and Kuroba-kun?" asked Ran after she picked up.

"Yeah. I waited to call because I know you don't get out of school before now, but I'm on the bus with them."

"OK, good. Thank you for calling- I would have gotten worried if you hadn't." This was followed by the sounds of running water and clattering dishes. "Just make sure to listen to Nakamori-chan and behave yourself while you're staying there, alright?"

"I will, Ran-neechan. I can hear that you're doing chores so I'll call you again later, OK?"

"Alright. I'll talk to you later, Conan."

_I notice that she didn't tell me to listen to Kuroba, _thought Shinichi with no small trace of amusement as he hung up. Not that he blamed her, of course.

"So Conan, do you have any homework that you have to do?" asked Aoko as they got off the bus fifteen minutes later.

"Aw, c'mon Aoko. The weekend's just started, don't bug him about homework already." _Besides, any homework that he _does_ have is going to be really easy for him. _

"Sensei wants us to spend twenty minutes today and tomorrow practicing kanji strokes," replied Shinichi as he pulled out a sheet of paper from his backpack that indicated which kanji were to be practiced. "I just have that and a half a sheet of math problems to do."

"OK. Kaito and I can help you with the math problems after dinner, and you can do today's kanji practice once we get to my house and start cooking."

"You _do_ remember that Mom's pretty much banished me from the kitchen aside from using the toaster, right Aoko?" Kaito asked in disbelief.

"That's not because you can't _cook_, Kaito, it's because you never clean up your pots and pans after you're done." Aoko sped up her pace and managed to cross the street just before the light changed, leaving the two boys on the other side of the street.

"A half a page of math homework and forty minutes of practicing kanji? That's _it_? man, I wish I was back in elementary school again," muttered Kaito to Shinichi as they waited for the light.

"Ha, ha." Shinichi looked up and offered his friend a pointed glance before they began crossing the street_._ "I hope that you can actually cook.

"Well, if almost burning curry a few times counts as cooking I can cook," replied Kaito with a confident nod as they caught up to Aoko.

"Don't worry about it, Kaito. I'll be there to make sure you don't burn anything. Actually, I think you'll be on chopping duty instead." Aoko finished the sentence as they arrived at Kaito's door. "Go drop your stuff off, I'm going to go ahead to the market down the street and start shopping."

"Where's your room at?" asked Shinichi as soon as Kaito had unlocked the door and the pair had stepped inside. "I'm going to unpack."

"Oh, you can put your stuff in the guest bedroom- upstairs, second door on the right. No sense in making you sleep on the floor mat in my room, right?" shrugged Kaito as he began to hang his jacket up in the closet. "It should be ready to use, I told Mom that we'd have a kid staying here this weekend because of this stupid school project they're having us do."

"Thanks." Shinichi walked upstairs and found the room, dumping the contents of his backpack onto the cream-colored bedspread and tucked his clothing into the three-shelf dresser in the room before carefully hiding the file folder of Black Organization information that he'd brought with him by sliding it in between the matress and its box spring. "I brought a file that's pretty much everything I've managed to find out about the guys," he called downstairs.

"Good- hopefully we can compare notes later tonight," came Kaito's reply as Shinichi began walking back down the stairs and towards the front door to join his friend. "But if we don't go catch up with Aoko she may buy-" here Kaito's mouth twitched- "_fish_ for dinner."

"You don't like fish?"

"That's...an understatement," Kaito replied as he locked the house behind them. "Cooked or not, I don't care- it's still fish." He then set off down the sidewalk towards the store at a very brisk trot.

_Hey Kuroba, remember that my legs aren't as long as yours! _thought Shinichi in irritation as he nearly full-out ran to keep up with the other boy.


	7. A Weekend Away, Part 2

Enjoy! :) I'm sorry for the slow updates on my stories; they're not going as fast as I'd like them to either.

* * *

"Um." Shinichi studied the plate of food that was in front of him, wondering if the fact that his fork seemed to be adhered to the side of his plate was a good thing. He suspected that it wasn't. "What exactly..._is_ this, Kaito-niisan?" _Seriously,Kuroba. I don't think I've ever seen shrimp curry- well, at least I _think_ it's shrimp curry based on what you and Nakamori-san bought at the store- stick onto a plate like glue before. _

"Shrimp curry." After he noticed Shinichi's 'Oh, really?' expression, Kaito added "Hey, don't blame _me_ for that one. Aoko's the one that cooked it after all." This was accompanied by the magician pointing an accusatory empty fork across the wooden table at Aoko.

Aoko gave Kaito a death glare and stuck her tongue out at him before she looked back down at her food with a snort. "I _started _cooking it, you mean. _You're _the one who added way more flour than it needed when my back was turned for a second, Bakaito." She eyed her steaming plate of curry and rice suspiciously. "And I have a feeling that you added more to it than just flour. I had to almost turn the pot upside down to get the curry to pour."

Kaito rubbed the back of his head and wore a sheepish expression. "Well, uh, it _did_ look a little thin."

"It's _supposed_ to be thin because you usually serve it like a sauce over rice! Honestly, you'd think that you've never eaten curry before." Aoko lifted up her fork and found her entire plate being lifted up along with it. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before setting the fork and plate back down. "You didn't happen to mess with the cooking temperature as well, did you?"

"Well, yeah. I added the flour and some other stuff so I figured it would need to be turned up for a while to cook right."

Shinichi could almost see the steam coming out of Aoko's ears, but instead of the blowup he'd expected she suddenly seemed to calm down, turning to Shinichi and offering him a smile. "I'm going to order some takeout for us, Kaito's treat, OK? What kind of teriyaki do you like? There's a great little place that delivers just a couple of blocks from here-"

Kaito blinked. "Wait just a dang minute here! Why am _I _stuck paying for this?"

"Because _you're_ the one that ruined our dinner," Aoko replied evenly before turning her attention back to Shinichi. "Maybe some teriyaki beef or teriyaki chicken, eh Conan-kun?"

"Do they have pork tonkatsu there? I like that a lot." Shinichi pointedly ignored the glare from Kaito he could feel burrowing into the back of his head as he replied in the chipper, childlike tone that had become a second nature to him.

Aoko nodded. "Yep, they have chicken and pork tonkatsu. I'll get the pork for you, then." She got up from the table, picking her plate of inedible food in the process. "What do you want to eat, Kaito?"

"Some beef teriyaki, I guess." This was half-grumbled in a discontented tone before Aoko walked out of the room to call the restaurant. "I don't even know if I have enough on me to cover this," Kaito muttered darkly as he reached for his wallet. After he pulled out some yen of varying denominations and began counting them, he turned to his friend. "Thanks for nothing, by the way."

Shinichi let out a single, barked laugh. "Kuroba, if you think I'm going to put this stuff in my stomach you're crazy." The shrunken tantei emphasized his point by lifting his glued fork and bringing the plate up with it, just as Aoko had earlier. Shinichi then found his eye drawn to a large framed picture that was up on the wall behind Kaito. _Hey...that guy looks an awful lot like..._He put the fork back down and hopped out of his seat in order to confirm his suspicions. Shinichi's eyes widened slightly as he finished walking up to the wall and took in a picture of Nakamori Ginzo standing alongside Aoko, the older man's right arm wrapped paternally around Aoko's shoulders and both wearing relaxed, happy smiles.

"Yeah, Aoko is Nakamori-keibu's daughter," explained Kaito matter-of-factly after he glanced over and realized what his friend was looking at so intently. "We've known each other since we were little kids."

The ensuing silence lasted for a good three to four seconds before Shinichi finally responded, his eyes never leaving the photo. "That must be...interesting."

"I dunno if that's exactly the word I'd use for it," shrugged Kaito as Aoko came back in to the room.

"Hey Conan-kun, why don't you let Kaito help you with homework for a bit until the food shows up? I'm going to clean up things before this stuff winds up stuck on everything for good and call the restaurant." Aoko gingerly grabbed the other two plates of curry. "Make sure you take notes for our paper, Kaito," she called behind her as she hustled back into the kitchen while hoping that the curry hadn't totally adhered itself to the plates yet.

Kaito sighed while he waited for the water to begin running in the kitchen as Aoko's muffled voice placing their food order came from the other room; it seemed like an eternity until it actually turned on. "Did you bring the stuff you found at that guy's house last week?" he asked as the sounds of clanking dishes and running water quickly filled the room.

"Of course I did, but it's all back at your house in the guest bedroom. I didn't exactly think that it was something you'd want to talk about in front of Nakamori-san." _Especially since she's the daughter of the guy in charge of the task force that's trying to catch you. _Yeah, maybe _interesting_ wasn't the right word after all. Shinichi looked through the doorway Aoko had walked out of and had a sudden epiphany, probably because he couldn't look at Nakamori Aoko without seeing bits and pieces of Mouri Ran in her gestures and appearance for some reason. "She doesn't know, does she?" _Just like Ran doesn't know about me. Well, at least I don't _think_ that she does. _There'd been more than a few incidents with Ran that made Shinichi wonder just how much she knew (or at the very least suspected,) the time that she'd given him her blood in the hospital -somehow just _knowing_ that their blood type would match before any tests were done- being the most major of them in his mind.

"Nope, she doesn't. And I figure it's probably a lot better that way for the both of us, with her dad being the head of the Kaitou Kid task force and all." Kaito leaned backwards in his chair and looked like he was thinking something over. "It'd be putting her between one heck of a rock and a hard place." He grimaced briefly while looking up and studying the ceiling intently. "Not to mention that I'd also probably never be able to get rid of the broom marks she'd leave all over me if she ever found out."

Ran punching a dent into the side of a telephone pole flashed in front of Shinichi's eyes suddenly, causing his stomach to go clammy and his mouth to go dry as he pulled out the homework papers he'd brought from elementary school. They both had to keep up appearances in case Aoko wandered back in the room, after all, and Kaito was supposed to be helping Edogawa Conan with his school homework.

"What's wrong, Kudo? You went really pale there all of a sudden." Kaito was leaning forward in his chair now, studying his friend with a cocked eyebrow.

Shinichi couldn't suppress a shiver as he pulled out a pen and very happily refocused his mind on the work spread out in front of him. "Let's just say that Ran knows karate really well, doesn't know that I'm me and leave it at that, alright?"

Kaito snickered while he picked up one of Shinichi's homework papers. "I, uh, take it that you don't need my help with any of this stuff," he grinned as he looked over the basic math problems on the page. "I sure wish I could get this kind of stuff for homework. It'd leave me more time to plan my heists."

"Ha, ha." Shinichi gave Kaito a sarcastic look before he went back to getting through the stuff as quickly as possible. He decided not to mention that he and Shiho occasionally had contests to see which of the two of them got thier assignments done more quickly thanks to the work being so simplistic for them. "No, I definitely don't need any help." As he finished with the math and pulled out the brushstroke practice sheets they were supposed to use, Shinichi realized that the clattering of dishes and sounds of running water had stopped coming fom the kitchen.

"Remind me to not let you anywhere near our stove ever again," sighed Aoko as she came back into the dining room where Kaito and Shinichi were sitting. "Dinner should be here in about twenty minutes. I hope you have enough for a tip, Kaito." She settled into her seat and watched Shinichi doing his assigned brushwork with a deliberately unsteady hand. "Are you almost done with your homework, Conan-kun?"

"Uh-huh. I just have to do two more sets of kanji." Shinichi pointed at the other papers that were laid out to his left. "I already did my math."

"Good job! Kaito and I can check it over for you once you're done with everything." Aoko turned to Kaito. "Speaking of homework, Hakuba-kun lent me a copy of his biology notes so that we can make sure we did that dissection report right."

It took Shinichi a few seconds to place the last name, but once he had he came to the conclusion that Kaito was living even more dangerously that he'd realized. _Well, if this 'Hakuba' is who I think it is. _He decided to risk asking the question after his curiosity got the better of him. "Hey, do you mean Hakuba Saguru-niisan, Aoko-neesan? I've met him a couple of times at Kaitou Kid heists that Mouri-ojisan brought me to."

"Yep, that's him. He helps dad a lot of the time with solving Kaitou Kid's riddles and trying to stop his heists," explained Aoko brightly. "Of course, Kid always manages to get away somehow."

"He transferred to our class several months ago because he wanted to help catch Kid," added Kaito after seeing Shinichi's puzzled look. "He flies back and forth between England and Japan a lot too, but he always shows up for school and any Kid heists."

Shinichi's mind was still reeling as he willed himself to focus on finishing out his last set of kanji practice. _So let me get this straight, Kuroba. Your childhood friend is the daughter of the keibu in charge of the Kaitou Kid task force, and you're _also _classmates with Hakuba Saguru, the guy that helps Nakamori-keibu out all the time and really wants to catch Kid himself. You may be even crazier than I thought. _Of course, Kaito wasn't literally living under the same roof as his friend like Shinichi was, but Shinichi also had the benefit of a seven-year-old body for a disguise. "All done now," he said as he put down his pen.

"OK. Let's go watch TV until dinner comes then; the living room's this way." Aoko got out of her seat and started walking to the right, waving with her hand.

"Be right there- I'm gonna help the squirt here put away his homework." The stomp on the top of his foot that Kaito received after he finished the sentence wasn't unexpected, but he could also tell that Shinichi hadn't put too much effort into making it hurt. "I'm gonna try and get us out of here after dinner so we can get some research done at my house for a while," he near-whispered to Shinichi as the two of them collected the papers that were on the table and finished tucking everything away into Shinichi's backpack.


	8. A Weekend Away, part 3

Enjoy! :) Sorry for my absence and the slightly short chapter; real life for the loss. D:

* * *

"_Finally_ out of there," muttered Kaito darkly after he and Shinichi stepped out of the Nakamori family's front door. "That was all of my spending money for this week, too," he grumbled as they headed towards the bus stop while he peered into his now empty wallet.

"You _could_ have not paid for it, you know." Shinichi had to almost run to keep up with Kaito's pace thanks to his small legs, until Kaito realized what was going on and slowed his walking speed down.

"I...didn't really have a choice. You haven't seen what Aoko can do with a mop when she's mad yet," replied Kaito with a shiver as they both sat down on the small, sheltered bench that the bus stop offered. "Actually, I think I _still _have bruises in a couple of places from when I rigged that water balloon in her desk last week."

Shinichi gave his friend a disbelieving look. _Then again, this _is_ the same guy that somehow set doves loose in nine different parked police cars during one of his heists so that they couldn't chase him until they cleared the doves out. _"You...put a water balloon in her desk?"

"She left her desk open, and an open desk is fair game." Kaito nodded firmly in agreement with himself as he finished the sentence. He decided to omit the fact that there had been five other victims on the same day, including Hakuba Saguru.

"I would hate to be one of your classmates," remarked Shinichi dryly as he surveyed the area carefully before asking his next question in a quiet tone. "So Kuroba, exactly how much do you know about the Black Organization?"

"Less than I wish I knew, actually." Kaito suddenly had a serious expression briefly shadow his normally playful features. "I know that they seem to be pretty good at manipulating people, and I know that they've been around a long time. They also seem to have their fingers in an awful lot of different businesses- some illegal and some legal." He scratched the back of his head as he looked into the distance. "They're pretty good at hiding themselves, too, which doesn't help. I've wound up grasping at straws trying to track them down more than once."

"Yeah, that's definitely one of the things they're best at- covering their tracks really well and pulling strings from behind the scenes," Shinichi said quietly as the bus began pulling up. "They prefer operating that way. The less that they're in the limelight, the better for them."

"I suppose." Kaito stood up and walked towards the bus as it opened its doors. "It's free since it's just a couple stops away," he explained after he looked down and saw Shinichi digging through his pocket for change. "We _could_ walk, but this gives us more time before we have to meet up with Aoko again."

_Yeah. After all, one of the main reasons I agreed to this weekend is because Kuroba and I need to pool our information about the Black Organization and try to figure out our next steps. _Of course, it didn't sound like Kaito had actually run across any of their members in person yet, but Kuroba Toichi's death definitely had the Black Organization's MO written all over it from what Shinichi had heard and read about it. Shinichi also still wasn't quite sure how he felt about actually_ working_ with Kaitou Kid, but Kuroba Kaito was far and away the lesser of two evils when you held him up next to the Organization. _Plus, there _is _that old saying... 'Any enemy of my enemy is my friend...'_

"Hey, we're here." Kaito's voice brought Shinichi out of his thoughts. "Told ya it was a short ride," he added as the pair got off the bus. "Now we just need to cross the street and-" He was interrupted by a dove landing squarely on his head and making itself comfortable in his hair. The magician's eyes narrowed as he studied the upper floor of his house. "Looks like Mom forgot to close my window again," he muttered under his breath as they approached the crosswalk.

Shinichi, who was attempting to stifle a fit of laughter with only partial success, followed Kaito inside the house and went up to the guest bedroom where he'd stashed his notes while Kaito went to his room to put the dove that had followed him away. _OK, good. I brought the stuff about Gin and Vodka, and the stuff on Vermouth too. Now where did I put the stuff on-?_

"Do you always look that serious, Kudo? You're gonna give yourself away sometime," quietly commented Kaito with a laugh as he entered the room.

The shrunken detective merely gave Kaito an annoyed look as he opened the binder he'd brought with him on the bed. Shinichi knew that Kaito was right, but he didn't feel like going into the subject right now. "So here's what I could figure out about that folder we found," he began as he handed Kaito some stapled sheets of paper. "You don't wanna know how long it took me to try and figure out all their shell corporations, even with Agasa-hakase helping me."

Kaito cocked an eyebrow as he studied the papers. "This many? No wonder they can hide so well."

"Kaito! Aoko's here!" Kuroba Akita's voice was immediately followed by footsteps bounding up the stairs.

"Quick, we gotta hide this stuff!" hissed Kaito as he stuffed his papers in a drawer before slamming it shut. "What bus did Aoko catch?" he continued quietly while footsteps rapidly approached the door. "That bus we took usually only comes once every twenty minutes..."

"Don't look at me. I don't know the bus schedule around here," replied Shinichi as he scrambled to stuff his own papers back under the bed.

"Why didn't you wait for me to take the bus with you?" demanded Aoko in half-meant anger as she entered the room. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion as she studied Kaito and Shinichi, that latter of whom was climbing out from under the bed. "Kaito, you'd better not be teaching Conan-kun how to pull pranks. Mouri-chan's trusting us to take good care of him while he's with us, you know."

"He wasn't, Aoko-neesan. I lost something under the bed,"Shinichi quickly blurted as he finished getting out from under the bed. "S-see?" he added quickly, pulling a handful of coins out of his pocket.

_Wow. You have _got _to learn how to lie better, Kudo. _Kaito resisted the urge to rub his temples as he looked at Aoko's doubtful expression. "Don't try and lie, Conan." He turned to Aoko with a sheepish look. "I shared some candy that I had. I didn't want him to get in trouble for eating so soon after dinner."

"I knew something was up. You know better than to eat so soon after dinner, especially when we already have dessert, Kaito." Her reprimanding tone vanished as she gave Shinichi a smile. "We'll have some ice cream that I bought in a while, OK Conan? So don't let Kaito spoil your appetite with any more candy."

"OK, Aoko-neesan." Shinichi felt a drop of sweat work its way down his face as she turned and left the room. "That was close," he added to Kaito in a whisper after Aoko had left.

"Only because you suck at lying. Now we gotta get downstairs or Aoko will wonder what's up." Kaito quickly moved to the door and headed down the stairs.

_Bah. I guess we're going to have to go through this stuff later after all. _Deciding not to dwell on that fact that Kaito was right about his lousy lying abilities, Shinichi slowly made his way down the stairs to see the sight of Aoko frantically scribbling in a notebook.

"What're you writing, Aoko?" Kaito's voice was coming from somewhere down the stairs that Shinichi couldn't see.

"Let me guess, Bakaito. You've forgotten that we're supposed to be observing things about kids for our paper," sighed Aoko as she continued taking notes. "Good thing I've been doing it, then."

"I wrote some stuff down," snorted Kaito defensively, crossing his arms as Shinichi walked up to the pair.

"Didn't we have a movie to watch or something like that?" asked Shinichi brightly, having noticed a plastic bag from a video rental store on the counter.

"Yeah, that's right! I found the new Kamen Yaiba movie. I thought you'd enjoy it." Aoko walked over to the bag on the counter and pulled out the movie. "Kaito and I can work on our assignment while you're watching."

"Wait just a dang minute! Who said we're working on our assignment? This is the only night of the week we get to stay up late, and-"

"And we need to set a good example for Conan-kun," cut in Aoko firmly. "We can take a break after we get two or three pages done," she finished brightly as she opened the DVD and turned on the television. "We can have some ice cream in a while, too."

Kaito groaned as he joined Aoko at the table. "So what do we have so far?"

* * *

"Well, at least she's not staying the night here. We can finally talk," sighed Shinichi as he retrieved the files from where he'd tossed them under the bed earlier.

"Two or three pages, she said. Yeah, right," sighed Kaito as he flopped down backwards onto the guest bed. "She made us do the whole thing in one sitting."

Shinichi began shuffling through the papers, deciding to get right down to business. "Remember those corporations we were looking at earlier that the Black Organization owns? Well, their members are a lot like that too- lots of shell games and code names. Their code names are always some kind of alcoholic beverage, though." He flipped to another piece of paper. "Three of their members that I've run into most often have the code names Vermouth, Gin and Vodka."

Kaito blinked, still staring at the ceiling. "Their leader like to drink a lot or something?"

"Ha, ha." Shinichi rolled his eyes before returning his attention to his notes. _Not that I really need them, of course...I know pretty much all this stuff by heart. _"Actually, that's one person that I've never been able to find much of anything at all on." He shook his head. "The whole organization's pretty slippery, but their leader's almost impossible to pin down."

Kaito worked himself into a sitting position on the bed, legs crossed underneath him. "Y'know I wonder if Jii-chan would know anything about these guys at all. He helped my dad, after all, and was even at the performance where Dad had his-" Here Kaito made quotes in the air with his fingers - "'accident.'"

"Did he see anything unusual the night of the accident?" Shinichi's first impulse had been to call it what it probably was- murder, but there was no definitive proof and since Kaito had used 'accident' so would he. _Of course, the sarcastic air quotes came into play, too... __  
_

Kaito shook his head, disappointment filling his face momentarily before it got shoved out again. "Nah. And believe me, he and I have gone over that night a lot. The only thing out of the ordinary that he saw was a few guys in black trenchcoats hanging around, but that's nothing really helpful."

"BAKAITO! How do you fold out this couch?" came Aoko's demanding voice from downstairs.

Kaito sighed. "Open the door real quick, would ya?"

After Shinichi opened to door, Kaito yelled "What does it matter? You're not spending the night!" down the stairs in reply.

"Yes I am," came the even reply. "We have to finish up the final draft of our paper, and I don't trust you to not teach Conan-kun a bunch of pranks."

Conan and Kaito both let out a deep sigh.

"Aw, _man_," groaned Kaito. "I know that tone of hers, too; we won't be able to talk her out of it." He shook his head. "All we can do now is wait until she goes to sleep."


	9. A Weekend Away, Part 4

:) Enjoy, and thanks again to my readers and reviewers! Working on rewriting/updating my older stuff now and working it into my writing rotation.

* * *

"Aoko, really. Opening this thing isn't anywhere near as hard as you're making it out to be." Kaito shook his head as he walked downstairs with Shinichi to help Aoko with the sofa bed she was trying to set up.

"Then help me out and just don't stand there, Bakaito!" She gave Kaito a mock glare as she continued to try and open the bed.

"What do you think I came down here for?" Kaito rolled his eyes in feigned irritation as he walked over. "It would probably _also_ help if you weren't trying to open the wrong end of the bed, you know."

"OH! Does it maybe open like this, Aoko-neesan?" Shinichi decided to turn his little kid dial all the way up to 'disgustingly cute' for Aoko's benefit. Twitching internally, he walked over and pushed what he figured was a release lever and sure enough, the bed sprang out of the couch with a loud 'pop.'

"Wow! Great job, Conan-kun! You figured it out all by yourself!" Aoko finished setting up the bed, then reached over and gave Shinichi a few affectionate pats on the head. "You're such a smart little boy!"

_If you laugh I'll 'accidentally' hit you with one of my soccer balls, Kuroba. Mark my words..._Shinichi shot Kaito a quick glare after he could tell that the other boy was barely holding in a fit of laughter. This, however, appeared to only egg his friend on further.

"Well, he does hang out with that scientist guy, right - Agasa-hakase or whatever his name is? Some of the guy's brains might have rubbed off on 'em."

It was as this point that Shinichi was very glad Aoko's back was to him. He decided to take advantage of the opportunity and gave Kaito a death glare, followed by popping his soccer ball out of his belt and charging his sneakers up. He then fake-kicked the ball towards Kaito, getting the exact reaction out of the thief that Shinichi had been hoping for. Kaito very quickly moved to the left and ducked behind the sofa bed before he could tell that Shinichi wasn't actually going to kick the ball, causing Aoko to give Kaito a curious look. Shinichi then very quickly deflated and stuffed the ball back into his belt before Aoko turned around. He offered Aoko a brilliant child's smile after she gave him a puzzled look. "Kaito-niisan is funny sometimes, isn't he?"

"I was, uh, looking for that Yamen Kaiba video you brought for Conan," replied Kaito from behind the couch with gritted teeth as he slowly got up with the video in his hand. He was very thankful that he'd managed to find the bag containing the video, or Kaito had no idea how he would have explained his behavior. Visons of a million different pranks he could perform as retaliation were running like wildfire through Kaito's head as he turned on the TV and video player. _Not exactly a smart move to pull something like that on me when you're staying in the guest bedroom right next to mine, Kudo. I think some of my pigeons will pay you a visit later after you go to sleep...or maybe it's time for that stash of rotten eggs I've got to find a place right under your pillow. _It would be _so _worth it to clean the bedding in order to extract a little payback, as far as Kaito was concerned.

"Oh, which one is this? My friend Genta has _allllllllll_ of them. They take up this much room on his shelf," remarked Shinichi as he swung his arms wide for emphasis. _Yep, Kuroba, I don't know what exact favor I'm going to ask in return yet but you _seriously_ owe me one. Maybe even more than one..._

"It's the one with the big scary octopus man!" cried Aoko as she raised her arms above her head and made claws with her hands. "And he looks like this!"

After the movie came on and they settled in to watch, Shinichi kept one eye half on the film and the other eye watching out for pranks from Kaito.

* * *

"Psst! Wake up in there! I think she finally fell asleep, Kuroba!"

Kaito woke with a start after he heard Shinichi hissing from the other side of his door, the other boy's low voice accompanied by light knocking on the door. The magician blinked to clear his eyes as he slowly got up out of bed, adjusting the bottoms of his pajama pants before walking over and opening the door with a grumpy, sleepy look on his face. He then waved the shrunken meitantei in, chastising Shinichi in a whisper after Shinichi shut the door slowly. "You realize that Aoko won't _stay_ asleep for long if you keep making that kind of racket, right Kudo?" Kaito then cast a pair of bleary eyes at the digital alarm clock by his bed, willing the numbers into focus and becoming even surlier once he realized what time it was. "And just _what_ is so important that you're getting me up at two in the morning on the one day of the week I actually get to sleep in?" He tapped his foot impatiently.

"We have some files that we need to go over, remember?" Shinichi gave him a serious look and held up the file that he'd smuggled in with him. "I brought this, and you were going to research the file we, uh, borrowed a couple weeks ago." Calling it 'borrowing' was really Shinichi's internal coping mechanism to deal with the fact that he'd actually actively helped to steal said file.

There was a pause of a couple seconds before Kaito glowered at the shrunken meitantei, bent down slightly and stuck his pointer finger a few inches from Shinichi's face. "Nope. No way. If you think I'm gonna try and tackle going through all this stuff at two A.M. without some coffee, you're nuts." Kaito then stood up and quietly walked past his friend with body language full of irritation, heading downstairs on tippytoes into the kitchen.

"Oh come on, Kuroba. I bet you're probably up at this hour all the time during your burglaries," remarked Shinichi in a somewhat smug sotto voce as he padded down the carpeted stairs behind the thief.

"There's one big difference right now though," Kaito replied in a low, growly hiss after they finished arriving downstairs. "Usually when I'm pulling off my heists I actually _plan_ on being up at this unearthly hour." He then entered into the kitchen and turned to Shinichi, who had carefully and quietly made himself comfortable on a bar stool. "Want some?"

"Sure, thanks." As Kaito filled a pot with water from the sink at a slow trickle Shinichi began to look around for a light source that wouldn't possibly wake up Aoko, who was dozing not quite ten feet from the pair on the fold-out couch that Kaito had helped her with earlier.

"We can go back upstairs once I've got this water boiled. The coffee's instant." Kaito muttered this under his breath as he very, very carefully extracted two cups and some sugar from a cabinet, putting them on a platter so delicately that everything may as well have been made of spun sugar. He then cranked one of the electric burners on the stove as far as it would go and placed the pot of water on to boil with a practiced hand. "You usually take cream in your coffee? I do."

Shinichi nodded and Kaito slowly creaked open the fridge before extracting a container of cream, trying to keep the door as shut as possible so that light wouldn't creep into the room. Both boys stared at the stove and waited impatiently for the water to boil, hawks waiting to strike the moment the pot began to make any kind of noise. While they waited, Kaito grabbed two spoons, a tablespoon and a large container of vanilla-flavored instant coffee then added the items to the platter. Once the water boiled Kaito pointed Shinichi towards a bottom cupboard, which held a teakettle in it after Shinichi did a little digging. They then both headed back upstairs with the boiling water, Kaito pouring the water into the kettle to keep it hot once they were back in his room.

"Hmm. I may have to see if I can get Ran to start buying this for us," remarked Shinichi post-sip after the two had finished making thier coffees a few minutes later. "It's really not bad at all." He then opened the file folder and opened it to the sparse notes he'd managed to gather on the Organization. "So, like we were discussing earlier, it seems from what I've found so far that all of them take a code name that's some kind of liquor. The other thing they do is pretty much always dress from head to toe in black- I actually think it may be part of a dress code or something for them. They especially seem to like long trench coats and fedoras."

"Tch, top hats are cooler." Kaito grinned at the baleful glare Shinichi gave him before continuing. "And black outfits? Everyone knows white's way better." He then laughed lightly as he reached behind Shinichi's glowering face and produced a 100 yen coin from behind the other boy's ear. "Lighten up a little, Kudo! Your face will freeze like that if you always look that serious."

"Ha, ha." Shinichi realized, though, that that sarcastic laugh had actually been close to a real one. It was weird to him; Kaito had this way of making you laugh even when you didn't _want_ to laugh sometimes. He supposed that it was mostly due to the magnetic, boisterous personality his friend possessed. "But seriously, these guys are everywhere, Kuroba. Probably even in some places you wouldn't even think to look for criminals."

"Well, yeah. Like this guys' pharmaceutical business that that file we grabbed was on, for instance." Kaito tossed Shinichi his own folder, which contained pictures of a large building and a logo on it.. "It sounds like they've had thier claws in it for a while. Kinda creepy to read about them rigging the election of a board of directors for a big public company like that, but from what I could see it was done without any problems. Which is a bad sign about these guys, if you ask me- means they probably know what they're doing and are also pretty good at it." Kaito's expression actually turned serious for a moment.

Shinichi nodded, a grim expression on his face. "That's exactly why trying to actually track them down or catch them is so difficult. These guys are so skilled at hiding and manipulating things behind the scenes that you'd likely never even know they were involved at all most of the time- and that's exactly how they like things." He waved at his stack of papers. "It's taken me _months_ to even manage to gather this much on them."

Kaito looked up at the ceiling and tapped his chin. "Sounds like we'll just have to out-think them then. Shouldn't be too hard for the two of us, right?" Then a grin slowly spread across his face that only took Shinichi a second or two to place- a grin he'd seen under the brim of a white top hat way too many times. "They might be smart, but I think both of us are smarter."


	10. Bodies from Heaven

:) Enjoy, and thanks again to my readers and reviewers! These stories are all within Muzai-canon, so Heiji knows about Kaito as well. Happy reading! Also, sorry for updating this before others but this story bunny bit me HARD and wouldn't let go.

* * *

"So tell me again why we're doin' this, Kudo?" Heiji shot his friend an annoyed glare. The question was asked in a hissed whisper after they finished settling into the very back of the bus, making sure that no one else was around them.

"Because Kuroba thinks that he might have found something on that murder case you're working in Osaka- the one last week where the body was found upside down in a restaurant freezer." Shinichi then let out a slightly irritated sigh. "And I've told you this three times now since you've gotten here, Hattori. Do you pay any attention at all when I talk to you?"

"Well excuse the heck outta me if I don't like the idea of workin' with the guy even a little. Considerin' his...uh, nighttime job an' all." Heiji glanced around the bus from under the brim of his hat. The Osakan decided to rather pointedly omit the fact that he'd already worked with the thief on a breaking and entry in the past.

Shinichi could barely suppress a roll of his eyes before he glanced over at his friend, deciding not to bring up the illegal activities that had occurred where they could possibly be overheard by others. He continued to speak in a low voice. "Look, do you want to solve the case or not? It's not like Kuroba has anything at all to gain by making something up about it. He's actually doing you a favor." The shrunken meitantei gave his friend a smug smile. "And I also happen to know that the investigation has hit a dead end for you guys down there. I read up on what's been happening with that investigation this morning before I called you."

"Ehh, I dunno. The guy does love his pranks from what I've seen." Heiji shrugged as he said it, though, apparently not completely convinced that it was merely a trick. "But I figure since y' already dragged me all the way up here the very least I can do is hear 'em out, right?"

"Anyone ever tell you two that you both suck at having a quiet conversation?" Kuroba Kaito's voice came floating over from the seat in front of Heiji and Shinichi. The magician then stood up and moved so that he was taking up the third, final seat in thier row. He gave them both a smirk as he finished taking his seat. "Seriously, you could probably hear the two of you way over by my house."

Still a little dumbfounded by Kaito's sudden arrival, Shinichi managed to speak up after a moment or two. "OK, Kuroba, how long have you sitting there for?"

Kaito grinned. "Just about since you went to meet Hattori at the train station- I got on at the stop after you got on. I was kinda hoping you'd called him and convinced him to come up." He then turned to Heiji and handed him a picture. "Here's a picture that I'm pretty sure is of the guy that did it- err, the freezer murder in Osaka, I mean. See, Kudo and I kinda borrowed a folder from this rich guy a couple of weeks ago, and-"

It was then that a woman's scream issued from the front of the bus. The bus screeched to a halt, and the three braced themselves while the bus fully stopped. Other assorted yells and screams could be heard, along with a loud buzz of conversation, along with a sea of roiling human movement.

"There's a dead man in this seat! He just started choking suddenly and keeled over! HELLLLLPPPPP!"

"And a dead woman in this one here! She was clutching at her throat and gasping for air, then died! AIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"

Kaito blinked before looking at the two meitanteis in total disbelief. "Do you two have a direct line to the Grim Reaper when you hang out or something?"

"Whaddya mean by that?" Heiji let out a snort before looking over to Conan. "We better get up there an' see what's happened, huh?" He then stood up and walked towards the front of the bus, almost having to yell to be heard over everything. "Alright, listen up! No one's gettin' off till the police come and talk to everyone here."

This was followed by a loud thud on the roof of the bus, then screams and yelling out in the street.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go get up on the roof and see what that noise was. Whatever hit the roof sounded like it was pretty big." Kaito gave Shinichi a half-wave before he slipped off towards the front of the bus, milling through the panicked passengers.

"HEY! LISTEN UP! Everyone back in your seats, and don't touch nothin' till the cops are through! The police are on thier way- this is officially a crime scene now. Be real careful to not touch anything, too." At Heiji's rather loudly spoken words, the passengers began returning to thier seats and sitting in them. Shinichi walked up to the other boy and tapped his back.

"Kuroba just went up to check into that noise on the roof." Shinichi spoke so quietly that Heiji had to squat down in order to hear him.

"Psst! Hattori!" Kaito's head was sticking upside-down through an open roof vent on the other end of the bus, and he stuck his arm through to wave Heiji over. "C'mere." After Heiji and Shinichi approached him, Kaito poked his head back through and gave them both another disbelieving look before he spoke softly. "I'll give you both one guess what made that noise. Here's a hint- it has two arms, two legs and it's very dead." His head then popped back out of the vent before the sounds of Kaito sliding the vent back into place could be heard.

_So not one, not two, but_ THREE _bodies? This is _really_ odd..._ Shinichi frowned as he studied the bus full of people. _How in the world did this happen? And why?_

"Lemme get this straight, Kuroba," muttered Heiji to Kaito after the other boy reentered the bus and walked next to Heiji and Shinichi. "We got _three_ bodies to deal with here?"

"Looks like it, unless there's another one tied to the bike rack or something. And given what's happened already, I didn't even wanna go look, so don't rule that possibility out yet." Kaito offered both meitantei a shake of his head and shrug of his shoulders. "Either one of you is welcome to go check, though."

_Not the time to be joking around, Kuroba. _Shinichi sighed and looked up at the magician, affecting his little-boy behavior so he didn't stick out. "Gee, what do you think happened, Kaito-niisan?"

"The heck if I know, aside from the fact that the dead guy on the roof was carrying some takeout from the restaurant across the street there." Kaito pointed his thumb out the bus' window at a small restaurant. "And it was also still warm; I could still smell the teriyaki sauce as soon as I got close to him and the bag it was in." He looked up and rubbed his chin in thought. "Spicy chicken teriyaki, to be exact, unless my nose failed me. I almost sneezed at first because the hot pepper in the sauce was so potent."

"T-this dead woman was carrying takeout from there, too," offered a trembling female voice from the middle of the bus. "I-it fell onto the floor in front of her because of that hard stop we had. I can see thier logo stamped onto the container."

"Hey, now that you mention it, this guy has warm takeout in his backpack too, I think," came an older male voice from the front. "The container must have busted open when the backpack fell over, though. I can see juice leaking through the bottom of the backpack."

Just then, the lights and sirens of a few police cars could be heard pulling up outside of the bus, surrounding it and blocking off the roadway. The First Division team of Satou-keiji and Takagi-keiji stepped onto the bus not long afterwards, looking over the scene and walking over to Conan, Heiji and Kaito.

"Hello Conan-kun! So you're caught up in this mess too, eh?" Takagi offered him a smile before looking at Heiji and Kaito. "So what's happened here, you three? We had about a dozen cellphone calls."

"Dead people. Three of 'em so far that we know about," offered Kaito brightly as he began pointing to the bodies' locations. "One in that seat up towards the front, one right about there in the middle of the bus, and one up on the roof that fell onto the bus not too long after the first two were discovered."

Heiji offered Kaito an annoyed glare before pointing to the other boy with his thumb to introduce him to the pair of detectives. "This is Kuroba Kaito, one of Conan's friends. The three of us got on the bus almost right before the bodies were discovered, actually."

"Heiji-niisan and Kaito-niisan were coming to Mouri-ojisan's agency with me," explained Shinichi in his bright child's tone as he offered a smile.

Satou nodded before noting a few things down in her pad. She then turned and started talking to everyone on the bus. "We would appreciate it if everyone would stand up and get in a single-file line to get off the bus. Please be very careful to not touch anything but your own belongings. Officers will be taking names and phone numbers and taking you to a station nearby to get everyone's statements and examine anything that they feel needs further investigation." At these words, everyone stood up, gathered their belongings and slowly got off the bus single-file while the officers processed everyone and tucked them into cars for travel down to the nearest police station.

"Have any of you noticed anything we can go on yet?" asked Takagi while he did a visual examination of the female body and the area around her.

"Well, Kuroba noticed that the guy upstairs had some real spicy teriyaki takeout when he went to check out what the big thud on the bus roof was," commented Heiji with a cocked eyebrow as he looked over the male body in the bus. "An' then a couple of the passengers noticed that the other two stiffs had takeout from the same place on 'em as well. Looks like all three of 'em must have eaten at the restaurant right across the street there pretty close before they kicked the bucket- Restaurant Bishoku."

Satou reentered the bus and shook her head. "The third body up top is a man- witnesses are saying they saw him fall from the rooftop of the building right above us. And they also mention that he was holding his throat as if he was choking while he fell."

"Then we should probably go check it out, huh?" Kaito looked at the restaurant through the bus' window. He then turned to Satou and Takagi with a cheerful smile. "Hattori, Conan and I could probably go walk over and check things out there if you want us to. You guys will probably be busy processing this bus for a while, right?"


End file.
